Calculating 4x100m potential

I’m not sure if this was covered, but I’ll re-introduce it anyways…

How do you calculate 4x100m potential?

Add up the best 4 times of each athlete, subtract 1 sec (due to acceleration) for the 2nd, 3rd, 4th leg, and add 0.1 sec for each of the 3 exchanges? (Basically add the leadoff leg, 3 x 100m fly times, and 3 exchanges)

I use the example of GDR’s 41.37 set in 1985…

Gladisch 10.99 in 1985 (lead-off in the relay)
Gohr 10.86 in 1985
Auerswald 11.04 in 1984
Reiger ? 11.10?

So 10.99 + 9.86 + 10.04 + 10.10(?) + 0.1 + 0.1 + 0.1 = 41.29

Anybody want to calculate other relays?

How fast can a dream team run a 4x100m (regardless of Country)?

Although ability at max speed is huge, zone accelerations can make a big difference. I would think that zone splits in the 2.0-2.1 region could run pretty fast with ~10.5m/s maxV sprinters!

It’s very difficult to calculate 4x100m potential, as it depends on the relay technique level, and also on the individual flying start and bend running abilities (and thus lane assignement).

Gladisch was a good starter and good bender, so she used to be on the first leg.
Rieger was for sure the weakest of that team, she replaced Marita Koch in that leg in Canberra, who ran 200, 400 and 4x400… Rieger was better known as a 200m runner: 22.37 at age 18 in 1982. The 2nd leg is the longest leg, as the runner can hold the baton from 90m mark to 210m mark (120m at best). So the profile of the “perfect” 2nd legger is someone who’s not especially a fast starter, but has good speed endurance. As it’s the longest leg, it’s better to have the best sprinter here, in that team it was Marlies Göhr of course, but she lacked of speed endurance and her pair with Auerwald was very experienced.
Auerswald had a great experience of the 3rd leg, i think she get it first in 1977. She really was a fast bender, that makes me think that she was nearly as fast in bend than in a straight line!
Auerswald gave the baton to Göhr dozens of times in competition, not talking about training, both sharing Hille methods at SC Motor Jena. Göhr’s weaknesses were first 30m and last 20m, so she had to have a flying start and a short leg. Anchor leg was perfect for her.

In 1985, those 4 girls ran in the same race in late September in East Berlin, few days before Canberra, and all set or matched their season best in that race (wind +2.0m/s)

  1. Göhr 10.86 (PB 10.81), 2. Gladisch 10.99 PB=, 3. Auerswald 11.12 (PB 11.04), 4. Rieger 11.19 PB.

I don’t have the electronic split times (i’m nealry sure that there wasn’t apparatus to search splits in Canberra) but from the tape, it was like this (rounded to the closest tenth):
11.1 + 10.2 + 10.1 + 10.0 = 41.4

From the stats i’ve found, the difference with the 100m individual time and the anchor leg is around 1.1.
so we can imagine a team, having around 10 training camps for relay all together, going like this:

  • Heïke Drechsler 11.0 (she ran 11.00 bend during 21.71 in Stuttgart’86)
  • Christine Arron 9.7 (her anchor leg in Budapest’98 was 9.66)
  • Florence Griffith-Joyner 9.8 (she used to run the 3rd leg, and did 9.8-9.9 in Roma’87 and Seoul’88)
  • Marion Jones 9.6 (that’s what she did in Sydney’00)
    Result 40.1.

40.1? that’s pretty scary!

so can we expect a 36.80 from the men’s US team. wow!!! who knows
John Capel 9.99? Tim Montgomery 8.78 Bernard Williams 8.94 Maurice Greene 8.79 (9.99+8.78+8.94+8.79+.3=36.80) I don’t know about the subtracting 1 from the third leg. Maybe 1.1 on both the last leg, .9 on the third, and 1 on the second leg.

What does everyone think

When adjusted for the real time of Reiger (11.19 vs assumed 11.10) fjlee’s calculations come out pretty darn close (.02!). Note the East Germans used the up pass. This pass allows for the least disruption of the arm action of the outgoing runner but cuts down the “free distance” (the distance between the incomming and outgoing runner at the point of exchange) and requires a fantastic amount of practice, as it runs the risk that there will not be enough baton available for the final exchange without an adjustment.
When Poland still used this method, they dropped the baton for this reason on the final exchange while in the lead at the Mexico City Olympics- and immediately changed to the “down pass” used in the west.

Originally posted by Charlie Francis
…Note the East Germans used the up pass. This pass allows for the least disruption of the arm action of the outgoing runner but cuts down the “free distance” (the distance between the incomming and outgoing runner at the point of exchange) and requires a fantastic amount of practice, as it runs the risk that there will not be enough baton available for the final exchange without an adjustment…

With regard to exchange types, is the true “push” pass a better alternative to the swing up (didn’t France’s team use this with Marie-Rose & Co) and swing-down when performed properly?

The “down pass” should only be a push pass. A down sweep is a guarantee for problems, as a miss can’t be recovered from while a push allows for some adjusting to make a tough pass.