English

Scaling in Athletic World Records

Adaptation and Self-Organizing Systems 2017-05-10 v1

Abstract

World records in athletics provide a measure of physical as well as physiological human performance. Here we analyse running records and show that the mean speed as a function of race time can be described by two scaling laws that have a breakpoint at about 150-170 seconds (corresponding to the ~1,000 m race). We interpret this as being the transition time between anaerobic and aerobic energy expenditure by athletes.

Cite

@article{arxiv.nlin/0003042,
  title  = {Scaling in Athletic World Records},
  author = {Sandra Savaglio and Vincenzo Carbone},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:nlin/0003042},
  year   = {2017}
}

Comments

published in the Brief Communication section of Nature

R2 v1 2026-07-22T18:06:44.772Z