The record for the 100m sprint is a bit under 10 seconds, which gives an average speed of a bit over 36km/h (about 22.5mph). But of course that’s from a standing start, so the sprinters’ speed towards the end of the race must be much higher. Anyone know what speed they reach? For that matter, is there record maintained for highest human running speed, in a momentary sense (not over any particular distance)?
It may still be Ben Johnson. The time is taken as a 10 meter increment of the 100 meter dash from the Olympics in Seoul, South Korea. His time for one of the ten 10m portions was 0.83 seconds. That comes to 26.95 mph. The average speed for the race was a mere :rolleyes: 22.85 mph. Ben Johnson’s time is technically disallowed due to the subsequent positive drug test results. At the same race, Carl Lewis finished the same 100m dash 0.13 seconds later, but achieved an identical time in the 10 meter increment. Technically, both hold that distinction.
(Record from 1996, I think Michael Johnson or Maurice Greene broke it. More research to come.)
I remember that Johnson’s time for the second 100m of his 200 was faster than that of his 100m (which makes sense, given that he didn’t have to accelerate from rest). So I’d assume that some portion of the final 100m of his 200m world-record effort would be the fastest human running speed recorded.
-ellis
And this page backs me up. Johnson is listed as fastest with 10.352 m/s (37.267 km/h) clocked for his 200m world-record. However, this seems to be based on his time for the entire 200m, so his last 10m should have been an even faster pace.
-ellis
http://4worldrecords.4anything.com/network-frame/0,1855,7445-13075,00.html
Michael Johnson holds the world record for the 200 meters, which is faster, by about a quarter of a second (.26 of a second) than his 100 meter time.
200 meters * 39.37 inches/meter=7874 inches
7874 inches/12 inches/foot=656.166666 feet
656 5280
——— =————
x
x=155.46 seconds for a mile
Taking the reciprocal of 155.46 seconds for a mile, we get .006432 miles per second. Multiplying by 3600 seconds in an hour, we get his miles per hour rate as 23.156.
Assuming .641 miles for a kilometer, we get 36.1257 kilometers an hour.
This, of course, assumes he sustains a constand speed X for the duration of the run, or that his average velocity is 10.352 meters per second.
I meant to say:
656 5280
————— = ————
19.32 x
hmm…I just saw this in an almanac yesterday…but I don’t recall the exact number cited there…perhaps 27.8 mph? Hopefully I’ll remember to check itwhen I sprint home again.
What you all (AETBOND417, ellis555, iampunha) are doing is figuring out the average mph of a sprinter over a 100 or 200m distance. It seems that the OP is asking for a peak speed.
I just went to the GBOWR website and all they have are olympic records. I do distincly remember reading as a kid (this would have been the 81 or 82 GBOWR) that a human was clocked at over 27mph – consistant with what Phobos remembers reading. I wonder if that record still is kept in the book? Anyone got one handy?
My land speed record? I think after a nasty confrontation with Jim Beam one night I probably reached 17 or 18 mph. Minor detail – it was down a flight of stairs.
I doubt Michael Johnson holds the record. Johnson’s time over the second 100 metres of his race was slower than the 100m times for most top-flight anchors in the men’s 4-by-100 relay. During the 1996 Olympics, both Donovan Bailey and Dennis Mitchell (at least) ran faster anchor legs than Johnson’s last 100. Johnson’s skill is in running a full 200m race at or near top speed; the Maurice Greenes and Donovan Baileys are still faster in full flight.
My guess would be that the record may still be held by Bailey. Greene has beaten Bailey’s time for 100m, but Greene is a much better starter, so he might have made the time up in the first 30 metres, which means Bailey might still have been traveling at a higher speed at 80-90 metres or so, despite a slightly slower time. Those who recall the 1996 and 2000 races will recall that Bailey started his race behind and caught up late. Greene led the whole way, as he usually does.
Of course, it might also be Ben Johnson, but he’s tainted. 
This, of course, is completely meaningless, since speed is measured as distance/time. Probably the closest you’ll get is AETBOND417’s 10 meter increments. (Where did you get those, BTW? I’d like to see if that type of measurement is available routinely.)
The world records that would be factors in determining this are:
[ul][li]100m, Maurice Greene, 9.79 sec; 9.79s/100m[/li][li]200m, Michael Johnson, 19.32 sec; 9.66s/100m[/li][li]4x100m, USA (Marsh, Burrell, Mitchell, Lewis), 37.40 sec; 9.35/100m[/ul][/li]
As RickJay points out, the relay team had a much faster average 100m than either Greene or Johnson. I don’t know the split times, but I would think that one of these four would be the fastest human.
JeffB
Good point. Does anyone know with a typical radar gun what the distance covered is when a reading is displayed? I assumed this is how they measured the record for Guiness.
Speed RADAR doesn’t actually measure the time of a change in position. It measures doppler shift: The change in energy of a radio pulse reflected from a moving object. So in a sense, that’s the closest we can get to an “instantaneous speed” measurement.
Police Laser does measure changes in position, and it’s measured in increments of [sup]1[/sup]/[sub]40[/sub] of a second, if I remember correctly. Not a tight enough interval for measuring world record times.
How good are the cameras that are used to record the olympics?
I would think that if you had 2 cameras and a very exact measurement of the distance run and the time it took you could interpolate instantaneous velocity at any point in the race.
While mine is still technically an average speed, it’s far more exact by breaking the 100m down into the 10m fraction of the distance during which he reached his top speed.
Guinness Book of World Records (40th Anniversary Edition).
Copyright 1996 by Guinness Publishing Ltd.
I thought the record was above 27 mph, but have yet to find the right source.
But there is such a thing as instantaneous speed, no? Or perhaps velocity? Don’t spedometers measure how fast you’re going at a particular time?
Time for anecdotal evidence, for lack of any pages on the internet (at least as far as I’ve looked). It takes me roughly 30-35 yards to get to my top speed, which is around 20 mph assuming ideal conditions. Most of that is the first twenty yards, when I’m going from a speed of 0 no matter how you look at it to a speed of about 15 miles an hour. The last ten or so of that 30-35 yards is when I max out. I can usually keep that speed going (20 mph) for about a full football field.
So for the first 35 yards let’s assume an average speed of 15 miles per hour. If I’m Maurice Greene, my average speed is 23.x miles per hour when I’m really booking, so for the other 65 yards of that race I’m going significantly faster than 22.x miles an hour.
average speed over 35 yards=15 mph
total average speed=22 mph
what is the average speed over the final 65 yards? That might take us closer to his highest speed.
I’m trying to work this out in my head, so cut me some slack. Just because the 4x100 team had a faster 100m average doesn’t necessarily mean they achieved a faster top speed during that 100m span. Keep in mind a couple things:
1)We’re looking for instantaneous speed, as mentioned repeatedly.
IMPORTANT:
2)The 4x100 team does NOT start in the blocks, but rather have a nice pace going (18 mph, to hazard a guess) as they cross the start of their respective 100m fraction (except for the first runner). Therefore, their paces would be much closer to a constant speed than those of the 100m sprinters that come out of the blocks and must accelerate as the clock runs. By this logic, a pure 100m sprinter may reach a higher speed so as to cancel out the slow (if you can call it that) start of the race.
Discuss among yourselves.
Split times for relay legs aren’t kept officially in track. However, you can get a pretty good estimate on the time by viewing a slowed down video tape.
Using such a system, Carl Lewis’ anchor leg on the men’s 4 X 100m relay at the 1992 Olympics was timed at 8.74 seconds. That was part of the record setting 37.40 time turned in.
Well, holy shit, I hadn’t visited this board since reading AETBOND417’s initial post (which seems to me to be about the only particularly useful post on here). But the below annoys me so much I’m going to have to hijack my own post
Guys are we trying to be helpful or just pernickity? Are we REALLY going to get into stupid argument about whether it is actually possible to talk of an instantaneous measurement of a constantly changing value? Is it really wise to call the above quote of myself “completely meaningless” or is that an appropriate phrase to use about the JeffB’s criticism?
Yes, there is no such thing as a speed that is not measured over a distance. I apologise to the boards for utter imprecision. Fuck it, let’s get down to quantum level, get Schrodinger’s cat involved and argue about whether accurate measurement is possible at all. Or perhaps maybe, JeffB, we could just stick to the practical world in which a measurement at the limits of what is reasonably possible with modern timing equipment (eg the distance covered over, say, 1/100th of a second) and call that momentary, huh?
I beg to differ with JeffB. Average speed is measured at over a set distance but a speed can be measured in pertaining to one particular instant. You would get that speed by making a graph of distance vs time and then measuer the slope at each particular point at any singular point you want and you’d get the speed at that point. Of course even though there is no distance or time to measure, how is it that we do get a speed? Well because both the distance traveled and time spent traveling that distance are both zero. What is 0/0, typically you’d say that is undeterminable unless you know exactly how they go to zero, and in this case we do.
Here’s a faster time then was mentioned in the beginning.
at the website http://www.maa.org/mathland/mathtrek_6_8_98.html
Donovan Bailey was going 27.1 mph at the 60m mark. This was the record in 1996
when I was a teenager I got hours of fun by suddenly pointing at my sisters feet and yelling “COCKAROACH.” And I swear that she was upstairs and on her bed before my eyes noticed that she was gone. Which was why it was so funny, heeheehee.