Another World Record
Posted on September 22, 2016 by Rob Carol, One of Thousands of Business Coaches on Noomii.
How is it that humans continue to jump higher and swim faster year after year? Could it be the coaching? When was the last time you broke a record?
Here we have enjoyed yet another Olympics competition.
I am amazed by what humans have achieved. We continue to break records and at the time that each record falls we are amazed. The world record in 50 meter breast stroke was just set and the winner beat the next rival by 1.5 seconds. A lifetime in a race that is less than a minute long. 57.13 seconds to be exact- 60 years ago the best in the world was a minute and 12 seconds. Many athletes break their own world record…again and again.
Then there was Roger Bannister
On a damp May day at Oxford in 1954, Roger Bannister ran a mile in under 4 minutes. He beat a record that had stood for nine years. But he wasn’t just faster; he broke through a barrier and busted myths of impossibility. It was thought that the 4 minute mile was a barrier that man could not pass- that the body was simply not able to go there. The heart would burst- the lungs would fail- it just was not possible…John Landy beat his record less than two months later.
Rodger would not have qualified to run in the Rio 1500- not just because he is 87- but because even his record breaking run was too slow to qualify for today’s Olympics. Alan Webb, a high school student, ran the 1500m in 3:38.26 at a meet in Eugene, Oregon in May 2001. That translates to about a 3 minute 54 second mile. So now even high-schoolers laugh at the 4 minute mile barrier.
We have been running jumping and swimming for thousands of years- we ought to be pretty good at it.
Logic would suggest that we have to come to the limits of our ability. One of the big stories of the London Olympics was that the swimming performances didn’t do a collective belly flop after the 2010 ban on high-tech, full-body swimsuits. Even so, eight swimming world records were bested in the Olympic pool. 25 swimming records fell four years ago in Beijing and 43 were demolished in the 2009 World Championships. Many more will fall in Rio
What is really going on? How are we able to continue to surpass what was once thought impossible?
Certainly one way is that we measure the results- now more than ever – coaches are focusing in on the metrics of performance and keeping track of what works and what doesn’t. Some advances in suits and footwear can account for a portion of the gains, but the real answer is coaching itself.
