The 2024 Olympic track and field is about to begin, with runners like the USA’s Noah Lyles, Jamaica’s Kishane Thompson and Botswana’s Letsile Tebogo set to go head-to-head in the men’s 100m event.
In the women’s race, the American Sha’Carri Richardson will face off against Julien Alfred from Saint Lucia.
The world record for the women’s 100m is still held by Florence Griffith Joyner, who ran with a time of 10.49 seconds in 1988.
The men’s record is held by Usain Bolt, with his 2009 time of 9.58 seconds.
So what would it look like if some of the fastest runners in the 100m race’s history ran against each other, and how do Australia’s speediest athletes compare?
Here, you can see how such a race might play out, if each athlete ran their record-setting time (or personal best). First, the men, featuring Donald Lippincott (the first official men’s record holder), Jesse Owens (using the American great’s personal best time), Jim Hines (first men’s sub-10s time in 1968), Bolt (the record that still stands today), and Rohan Browning (Australia’s fastest man):
And next, the women’s race, featuring Marie Mejzlíková (the first official record setter in 1922), Renate Meissner from the former East Germany (the fastest time recognised after the electronic timing switchover), Griffith Joyner (who has since died but whose record remains), Elaine Thompson-Herah from Jamaica (fastest runner still competing), and Torrie Lewis (Australia’s fastest woman, who is not actually competing in the 100m this Olympics):
One interesting question is whether sprinters are approaching a plateau in how fast it’s physically possible to run the 100m. The next chart shows the progression of world records over time:
It remains to be seen how and when the records of Griffith Joyner and Bolt will be broken, and exactly how far advances in training science and equipment can push the boundaries of what is possible for athletes.
And finally, a bonus chart! It’s sometimes hard to get a sense of just how fast these athletes are without comparing them to mere mortals. Here you can see how some of the fastest sprinters of all time compare to an average person running the 100 metres:
Sources for how fast the average person can run 100 metres are scarce, but there are a few papers out there comparing speeds for students which include non-athletes, as well as this guide. Based on these, our hypothetical person runs the 100m in 16 seconds.
If you want even more context for how sprinters compare to the speed of a wide variety of other things, check out this old interactive graphic which lets you pit Usain Bolt against a cheetah.
