In search of peak human athletic potential: A mathematical investigation

TL;DR

This study investigates elite athletic performance trends from 2001 to 2019, revealing an Olympic effect, potential performance plateauing, similarities across genders, and geographic diversity patterns using mathematical and statistical methods.

Contribution

It introduces new analytical approaches to study performance trends and geographic diversity in elite athletics, providing insights into Olympic effects and leveling performance.

Findings

Performance improves during Olympic years

Top athlete scores are leveling off

Gender performance trends are similar across events

Abstract

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 findings. First, we perform a detailed regression study to reveal the existence of an "Olympic effect", where average performance improves during Olympic years. Next, we study the rate of change in athlete performance and fail to reject the notion that athlete scores are leveling off, at least among the top 100 annual scores. Third, we examine the relationship in performance trends among men and women's categories of the same event, revealing striking similarity, together with some anomalous events. Finally, we analyze the geographic composition of the world's top athletes, attempting to understand how the diversity by country and continent varies over time across events. We challenge a widely held conception of athletics, that certain events are more geographically dominated than others. Our methods and findings could be applied more generally to identify evolutionary dynamics in group performance and highlight spatio-temporal trends in group composition.