Environmental and venue-related factors affecting the performance of elite male track athletes

Abstract

The effects of environmental and other venue-related factors need to be taken into account when tracking an individual athlete's competitive performance. We report the effects of such factors on the performances of elite male track athletes. Performance times throughout the athletic careers of male track athletes placed in the top 16 of their event in at least one Olympic Games or World Championship between 2000 and 2009 were downloaded from the athletics results database at tilastopaja.org. In the 10 running events (100 m through 10,000 m, including hurdles and steeplechase), there were 619 athletes with 43,999 performances, all with enviromental and venue-related information. Times for a given event were log-transformed to estimate percent effects in a mixed linear model with fixed effects for the environmental and venue-related factors and random effects for within-athlete race-to-race variability and individual athlete performance progression. After adjustment for quadratic trends for year of competition and each athlete's age, the model provided estimates of effects of standard of competition (Olympics and World Championships vs other competitions), altitude (sea level vs ≥ 1000 m), timing method (electronic vs stopwatch), wind speed (greater than vs less than 2 m · s–1), and venue (outdoors vs indoors). Uncertainty in estimates of environmental effects expressed as 99% confidence limits was sufficiently small (at most ±0.9%) for almost all outcomes to be clear when interpreted in relation to smallest important changes (0.3–0.5%). Olympics and World Championships produced substantially faster times for events up to 400 m (0.7–0.8%) but slower times for the 1500 m, 5000 m, and 10,000 m events (0.6%, 1.2%, and 0.2% respectively), presumably reflecting differences in preparation or pacing. Altitude produced substantially faster times in some 100 m, 200 m, 400 m, and hurdle events (0.1–0.5%) but substantially slower times in longer races (1.1–2.4%), reflecting opposing effects of altitude on air resistance and aerobic power. Stopwatch times were faster for sprints (0.3–0.5%) but slower for 1500 m and longer events (0.6–2.1%), possibly because of bias in reaction time and confounding by standard of competition. A typical trailing wind of 2 m · s–1 conferred small benefits (0.5–0.8%) on the three sprint events where wind speed was recorded. Indoor events were consistently slower (1.6–2.3%), a likely consequence of tight bends. In conclusion, use of these environmental and venue-related effects to adjust performances of male track athletes will make comparative assessment of all their performances more meaningful.