I have not watched a lot of the Olympics, but even so have managed to see a surprising number of new Olympic and World records. Didn’t quite think how many until I read this at www.economist.com:
“AT THE OLYMPIC GAMES in Tokyo on July 25th, a quartet of Australian swimmers set a new world record in the women’s 4 x 100 metres freestyle event. They swam the distance in three minutes, 29.69 seconds—an average speed of 1.9 metres a second—skimming 36 milliseconds off the old record set three years ago by a team containing three of the Tokyo four. A team of Chinese swimmers broke the world record for the 4 x 200 metres freestyle on July 29th. And a further seven Olympic records have been broken at the games so far.
Swimming records have been tumbling for some time. In the previous five years new world bests have been set in 13 of the 17 women’s Olympic swimming events. Men have also been swimming faster: in the same period new world records have been set in five events.
Not every Olympic sport has seen such improvements in performance. Although track athletes have been breaking records too, their progress has been speedier in some disciplines than others (see chart). New world records tend to arrive in clusters, as technical innovations and pioneering individuals make their mark. The timing of those clusters, as well as the reasons behind them, may seem random, but they depend on the nature of each sport.“
This always makes me think of just how much people are getting better. Regretfully, it also surprises me the records Griffith-Joyner set are still standing. I am not saying they were enhanced or undeserved. But it is surprising. Maybe technology just doesn’t help in short distance running. Maybe it’s Maybelline.
Her 100m world record is still questioned - not because of drug allegations (although she does have those), but because pretty much every wind measuring device in the stadium except the one World Athletics appeared to be looking at had her running in a tailwind about twice the legal limit to count for a record.
There was a study, which I can’t locate, comparing the performance of Jesse Owens in Berlin 1936 Olympics running 10.3 vs Usain Bolt at Rio 2016 running 9.81.
On straight times Bolt beat Owens by 14 yards.
But Owens was running on a cinder track, and had to dig his starting blocks with a trowel.
Allowing for the improvements in the track surface in terms of traction, rebound and the advantage of modern starting blocks, based on stride and leg speed they calculated Bolt would have won by a bit over 1 yard.
There has been an enormous rise in ‘sports science’ over the last few decades - much of it aided by computer analysis. For example, swimming was fairly limited in technical training because it was hard to exactly analyse what was happening in the water. Now they have what are basically ‘water wind tunnels’ they put theswimmers in and can break down their techniques to the nth degree. (This, of course, led to the ‘super-suit’ era where the costume you were wearing made a significant difference). If you look at a Teams pursuit in cycling this Olympics, you will notice that the riders are pushing much bigger gears than 10 or so years ago - because of analysis of VO2, power and speed maintenance, aerobic, anaerobic and muscular ‘red zones’ and a whole lot of other big words that I don’t fully understand.
The Brits put huge money into Olympic sport analysis - particular those where technological analysis could be used play a part - rowing, cycling etc. It’s colloquially called ‘Technical Doping’.
And as PenultimateThule above said - the technology of the track is improving all the time. Pools are faster, velodromes are faster, look at the swimming starting blocks they used back in the 1960s. And now we have the ‘super shoes’ as well.