Are females failing to progress in 100m

Track & Field 100m
1

Maybe its me, but it seems that females in the 100m (possibly 200) have failed to progress at the same rate as the males in general. If you look at the times achieved in the 80’s and 90’s with people like: Ashford, Dreschler, Flo, Torrence, Privalova, The East Germans, Devers, Ottey, Angela, Grace Jackson, Marion, etc. etc.-the recent times do not seem comparable. At first glance it simply seemed that Flo (in particular)and Marion had warped the overall women’s performance curves with their fantastic marks, but it’s not limited to the amazing times of those two.

Has anyone else observed this and what might be the explanation?

2

I’d like to say that when I was watching the woman’s 400 yesterday the times seemed to be getting worse as the year went up. Back in 83 the winning time was 47.9 and now women seem incapable of breaking 49

3

It’s not only 400 or sprints - look at the jumps and throws WRs as well…

400m: GDR 1985
800m: CSSR 1983
Long Jump: USSR 1988
High Jump: BUL 1987
Shot Put: USSR 1987
Discus: GDR 1988
all the famous Chinese Middle Distance WRs…

One reason is that due to the collaps of the Eastern Block the training possibilities in the countries that produced the majority of WR performances are not the same any more.

Secondly certain things not allowed to discuss on this forum have even stronger effects on women than on men and a forced reduction on these certain activies might have lead to the decreases in perfomace we see now. If you want to know more you might want to read Carlies book “The Speed Trap”.

4

It seemed like Marion Jones was gonna be a great until the Balco scandal.

5

Along with her having her baby as well. Don’t forget that one babies can take a lot out of women…Consider that during the Olympic Trials her baby was basically rigth out of the womb, so if she as breast feeding that had to take a lot out of her, along with the restless nights…you get the picture. People fail to realize that when they see her not perform as well lately!

6

True, but Chritine Arron maneged quite well. They just need enough time. Marion started too early I think.

7

The hormone release during pregnancy is aid to help athletic performance post partum. I guess one problem could be that the athletes priorities have now changed.

I think increased pain threshold will also result after giving birth!

8

All we can really say about these results is that it has been well documented why their performances were so incredible.

Like he suggested, read Charlie’s book.