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Abstract Details
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Activity Number:
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208
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Type:
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Invited
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Date/Time:
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Monday, August 1, 2011 : 2:00 PM to 3:50 PM
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Sponsor:
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Section on Statistics in Sports
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| Abstract - #300481 |
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Title:
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The Tarzan Effect: Why Are Athletes Today Better Than in Years Past?
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Author(s):
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Scott Berry*+
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Companies:
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Berry Consultants
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Address:
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, , 77845 , USA
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Keywords:
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Bayesian Modeling ;
Sports ;
Population Modeling
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Abstract:
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In 1928 Johnny Weissmuller, who later played Tarzan in movies, was a famous Olympic champion swimmer. If the 1928 Olympic champion was able to swim 15 consecutive 100 meter swims (a relay of 15 Tarzans), of his world record 100 meter time, he would lose to a single modern athlete swimming a 1500 meter race. In objectively measured sports, such as track and field, speed skating, and swimming, world records, and Olympic times are getting better. There are likely many reasons why. Surely it is a combination of better training and better health, but a misunderstood effect is clearly that the population is bigger. We create Bayesian models of the effect of the population on Olympic winning times and find that the population of the world explains the increase in Olympic times very well and can be used to explain much of the improvement in Olympic times.
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Authors who are presenting talks have a * after their name.
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