Olympics 4x400m relay
By: Sarah Pryor- 4th period
Goal of Study
The goal of this article was to use linear regression and other methods of solving of equations to determine if and when women's events in the Olympics will pass the men's events, performance wise, in the Olympics. Studies show that women are increasing more quickly (performance-wise) in certain events. Even though the men and women do not compete against each other, their times/distances can be compared. To do this I put the years of which these Olympic events took place into my graphing calculator and attempted to find the intersecting point if there is one. Here is what I found out.
About the 4x400m relay
The 4 by 400 meter relay was first competed in the Olympics in 1972. It is 4 runners who each run 400 meters, or one lap. The fastest time on Olympic records for women is 3:15.18 (195.18 seconds) which was by the URS, Mariya Pinigina, Olga Nazarova, Olga Bryzgina, and Tatyana Ledovskaya. The fastest winning time recorded in the Olympics for men is 2:55.39 (175.39 seconds) by Beijing and by the runners Jeremy Wariner, David Neville, Angelo Taylor, and LaShawn Merritt in 2008.
Graphs of times and graphing calculator screenshots. Evidence.
Table of Olympic winning times.
This table shows the Olympic gold medalist times, of both men and women, from year 1972 all the way up the 2012.
More of the table
Even more of the table
Scatter plot of Olympic gold medalist times.
The blue squares represent the gold medalist times of the women. The blue X's represent the male gold medalists times.
Scatter plot with lines of best fit.
The red line in this picture represents the men's times. The blue line represent the women's times.
No intersection point!....
Meaning of no intersection point!
Since there is not an intersection point this means that mathematically-based, the women will not pass the men in performance in the 4 by 400 meter relay. However, if there is a sudden change in women times, the times could still eventually be the same and the women could still surpass the men.
Intersection in the past
However there was an intersection point in the past. If this was going on in 1743(the X coordinate) this would have been when the women starting decreasing a a more rapid pace than the men. The time (the Y coordinate) would have been 212.1964938 when the women really started to slow down in their times.
Resources
Times
http://www.olympic.org/athletics-4x400m-relay-men
http://www.olympic.org/athletics-4x400m-relay-women
Images:
http://blog.syracuse.com/sports/2012/08/olympics_2012_us_runner_runs_2.html
http://www.nbcsports.com/olympic-sports/us-women-win-olympic-gold-4x400-relay
http://www.sfgate.com/sports/article/U-S-relays-fail-Merritt-leads-U-S-sweep-of-400-3199213.php