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Embarrassed by your Olympic javelin: did cavemen do it better? (2012)

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Re: Embarrassed by your Olympic javelin: did cavemen do it better? (2012)

#81

Post by arp242 »

Clewza313 wrote: post #3

Javelin is a bit of an outlier in the Olympics in that throws today are nowhere near the records, even after the changes discussed in the article. The winning throw this year was 87.58m, with only one other competitor managing even 86m. The world record, dating from 1996, is 98.48m , a full 10 meters and then some longer. Germany's Vetter, the one modern javelin thrower who has come within striking distance of that (…

> So why are we so much worse than 25 years ago? The obvious explanation would doping.

Looking at the list of furthest throws[1] this doesn't really seem that obvious at all.

The top two are quite large outliers, with a 4 metre gap to #3, and people in general don't seem to have been throwing much further in the past. Indeed, the difference between #1 and #25 is almost 10 metres, or 10% of the record. That's quite the difference!

Johannes Vetter seems to be in the same league as Jan Železný; Vetter is 28, Železný established his record at the age of 30. It's entirely possible that Vetter will manage to break the record in the future.

So either both Železný and Vetter are exceptionally talented athletes in their field, or they're both doped to the gills without being caught. It's not like there wasn't any attention to this in the past, see e.g. [2] from 1989. There sure is more attention to this now and I suppose it's possible that Železný used doping, but that Vetter exists in the same league as Železný demonstrates that Železný didn't have to be a doping user to be so good at it.

So in short: it's not all that obvious to me looking at the data. It's not like cycling/Tour de France with a long history of doping use (which is partly, I suspect, because what's being asked of riders borders on the inhuman).

[1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Javelin_throw#All-time_top_25_...

[2]: https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/sports/1989/06/18/in-...

Re: Embarrassed by your Olympic javelin: did cavemen do it better? (2012)

#82

Post by Jleagle »

nradov wrote: post #80
hervature wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Could also put an engine in there. Sports are defined by arbitrary rules.

There are actually sanctioned eMTB races now. Seems a bit lame but whatever.

Why is that lame? Because they have a machine helping them? Is motocross lame?

Re: Embarrassed by your Olympic javelin: did cavemen do it better? (2012)

#84

Post by sdwr »

p1key wrote: post #53
vikiomega9 wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Source for the reason Johannes Vetter failed? Does not look like this was covered well in the press.

My source for this was watching the final myself. When I watched the broadcast myself it was clear to me that this was the problem. Also the (Finnish) commentators were very knowledgeable in the sport and pointed out the problem many times. I was unable to find a clip of his throws in YouTube, but here's a Google Translated article from a Finnish newspaper: https://bit.ly/3xvZWMk .

That's some high-quality journalism. Matter-of-fact, primary sources, asks illuminating questions.

Re: Embarrassed by your Olympic javelin: did cavemen do it better? (2012)

#85

Post by nl »

sandworm101 wrote: post #78
nl wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But restrictions on swimsuit material have gone the other way. There were a bunch of records set using non-permeable suits in 2008-2009 that will take year to break again after FINA introduced the "textile material" rule. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LZR_Racer#Marketing_and_result... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arena_X-Glide#Controversy

One of perhaps a dozen rules. The one rule that was tightened in a sea of rules being loosened.

Restricting underwater distance in butterfly was one that slowed swimmers a lot.

Re: Embarrassed by your Olympic javelin: did cavemen do it better? (2012)

#86

Post by cdbyr »

amarant wrote: post #56

The idea of "freeform" sports competition is interesting. It shouldn't be a replacement but rather a addition to current sports. By freeform here I mean that you remove most of the rules. For example for biking you could allow whatever vehicle the competitors choose so long as it is powered entirely by the cyclist. Not sure what a reasonable "freeform" ruleset would be for javelin, at some point javelins stop being j…

You might find development class sailing interesting. For example, the Moth started off as a fairly normal dinghy and is now a really fast foiling boat: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moth_(dinghy)

I’m not sure if there are similar things in other sports, but with Moths and foiling boats, there are plenty of people who say this isn’t real sailing. Fun to watch, though.

Re: Embarrassed by your Olympic javelin: did cavemen do it better? (2012)

#87

Post by lelanthran »

getlawgdon wrote: post #73
lelanthran wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I'm quite familiar with the sport and I'm truly curious as to whether you're making this claim about JZ and if you could name 10 throwers without Googling it. What does his claim[1] have to do with knowing who the throwers are? FWIW, I think that, if you look at a sport and find that the performance of athletes in that sport decreased significantly after the introduction of more comprehensive drug testing, then it…

I think you should spend some time plotting throws of the last 20 years using performances from top athletes the worldathletics website. You'll discover that you are mistaken. This suggestion is related to to for why the claim matters, which is familiarity with the sport (as represented by the ability to name its participants). As a longtime participant in track and field, athlete, coach, and fan, I have invariably f…

> You'll discover that you are mistaken.

Mistaken about what? That the assumption of doping is not unreasonable? After all, I didn't say the assumption of drug-use was likely correct, I said that the assumption itself is not unreasonable.

> So, "show your familiarity" is a jabby heuristic to prove the point.

Being involved in the subjects (say, by following their career?) is evidence of bias when drawing conclusions from data points.

In other words, the heuristic is actually the other way around - if you're "familiar" with the subjects you're the wrong person to be drawing conclusions from the statistics.

It's why we insist on double-blind trials for some things - the researcher has to be ignorant of the subjects involved. Being familiar with them means the conclusions are invalid.

Re: Embarrassed by your Olympic javelin: did cavemen do it better? (2012)

#88

Post by mariusor »

recursive wrote: post #77
scheme271 wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It depends but I don't think a recumbent bike is all that great when climbing or descending. I can't see cyclists wanting a recumbent if there are any significant elevation changes on the course.

Recumbents are beasts of descending. As long as there are no turns. On a straight descent, they'll beat anything without even trying.

We are talking about pro-cycling. The descents in pro tours have _a lot_ of turns.

Re: Embarrassed by your Olympic javelin: did cavemen do it better? (2012)

#89

Post by amanaplanacanal »

2muchcoffeeman wrote: post #25
londgine wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

swimming technique and bicycle technically have improved a lot and all of the grading sports (gymnastics, diving) are constantly being changed since they were introduced into the Olympics. That is why so many of those records could be beaten. However it looks like Olympic archery does not allow a compound bow. I guess every sport decides if they want innovation or not.

So what? Are people really not participating in a sport because there is no hope of breaking a WR? Sports are about fun and competition and sometimes exercise. I’d also argue there is a difference between rules about equipment and rules about technique. Technique rules may have to be adjusted more often because if an athletes does something unusual that is within the current rule set but may be seen as advantageous,…

Sports in the Olympics are about Viewership and money. Falling records would probably contribute to that.

Re: Embarrassed by your Olympic javelin: did cavemen do it better? (2012)

#90

Post by tstrimple »

thaumasiotes wrote: post #41
coopsmoss wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Attainable goals are more motivating and meaningful than unattainable ones. It's in many ways a different event because the equipment is different, so why should a record for a different event stand.

> It's in many ways a different event because the equipment is different, so why should a record for a different event stand. That's a completely separate concern. Once records are established for the current event, you still expect them to be more or less permanent. Turning in the best performance in all of history is not an attainable goal . You can't expect it to be one.

What are you talking about? World records are broken all the time.

https://www.economist.com/graphic-detail/2021/07/29/olympic-...

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