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Based on a mathematical simulation which reproduces accurate split and velocity profiles for the 100 and 200 metre sprints, the magnitudes of altitude and mixed wind/altitude-assisted performances as compared to their sea-level equivalents…
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…
Anyone who has tried to memorize a one-hundred-digit number can attest that the human brain acquires abstract information slowly. However, following a three-decade increase of results at memory competitions, the best competitors manage to…
Our aim is to present a new model which encompasses pace optimization and motor control effort for a runner on a fixed distance. We see that for long races, the long term behaviour is well approximated by a turnpike problem. We provide…
Inspired by the Games held in ancient Greece, modern Olympics represent the world's largest pageant of athletic skill and competitive spirit. Performances of athletes at the Olympic Games mirror, since 1896, human potentialities in sports,…
That the speed of light is always c=300,000km/s relative to any observer in nonaccelerating motion is one of the foundational concepts of physics. Experimentally this was supposed to have been first revealed by the 1887 Michelson-Morley…
The Olympic sport of skeleton involves an athlete riding a small sled face first down a bobsled track at speeds up to 130 km/hr. In these races, the difference between gold and missing the medal stand altogether can be hundredths of a…
At the 2005 world championships there was considerable discussion and a formal protest in the long distance race arising from a perceived advantage obtained by some athletes running together. It is shown that a statistical model presented…
The lonely runner conjecture, now over fifty years old, concerns the following problem. On a unit length circular track, consider $m$ runners starting at the same time and place, each runner having a different constant speed. The conjecture…
In swimming competitions, the center lane is considered to be the best lane. The main objective of this study is to discuss the validity of the assertion, "good swimmers should be placed in the center lanes because these lanes has…
This paper applies existing and new approaches to study trends in the performance of elite athletes over time. We study both track and field scores of men and women athletes on a yearly basis from 2001 to 2019, revealing several trends and…
In this paper, we explore the space of running gaits for the bipedal robot Cassie. Our first contribution is to present an approach for optimizing gait efficiency across a spectrum of speeds with the aim of enabling extremely high-speed…
Drafting as a process to reduce drag and to benefit from the presence of other competitors is applied in various sports with several recent examples of competitive running in formations. In this study, the aerodynamics of a realistic model…
Sport climbing is an athletic discipline comprised of three sub-disciplines -- lead climbing, bouldering, and speed climbing. These three sub-disciplines have distinct goals, resulting in specialization of athletes into one of the three…
The speed of light in vacuum, one of the most important and precisely measured natural constants, is fixed by convention to $c=299 792 458$ m/s. Advanced theories predict possible deviations from this universal value, or even quantum…
In order to describe the velocity and the anaerobic energy of two runners competing against each other for middle-distance races, we present a mathematical model relying on an optimal control problem for a system of ordinary differential…
The objective of this work is to provide a mathematical analysis on how a Thoroughbred horse should regulate its speed over the course of a race to optimize performance. Because Thoroughbred horses are not capable of running the whole race…
In some athletic races, such as cycling and types of speed skating races, athletes have to complete a relatively long distance at a high speed in the presence of direct opponents. To win such a race, athletes are motivated to hide behind…
Running world records (WRs) contain information about physiological characteristics that determine running performance. The progression of WRs over time encode the evolution of these characteristics. Here we demonstrate that a previously…
Because the decathlon tests many facets of athleticism, including sprinting, throwing, jumping, and endurance, many consider it to be the ultimate test of athletic ability. On this view, estimating the maximal decathlon score and…