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Athletics

100m record could drop to 9.48s

28/11/2008

The 100 metre sprint record could one day drop to as low as 9.48 seconds, new research claims.

A report published in the Journal of Experimental Biology today looked at the running performances of dogs and horses to discover how close modern runners are to their species' peak performances.

The author found that while horses and dogs have apparently reached a plateau when it comes to speed, male runners have yet to reach their top speeds at any distance, predicting that Usain Bolt's current 100 metre world of 9.69 seconds would be broken and could one day go down to 9.48 seconds.

Mark Denny, from Stanford University, also said that female sprinters could eventually knock more than 0.4 seconds off the current 100m world record to cover the distance in 10.19s.

In terms of long distance running, Mr Denny said that male marathon runners could potentially cut the current world record, held by Haile Gebrselassie, by between two minutes seven seconds and four minutes 23 seconds.

He added that Paula Radcliffe's current marathon world record of two hours, 15 minutes and 25 seconds was very close to his average prediction for the maximum marathon speed for women.

The author added that it was still unknown what aspect of physiology restricts runners' performances and called for further research in the area.