The Relay Race Times
The comparison between the men and women Olympics times
The Art of Running
Since about 1928, both genders have been competing to be the best. A long and hard battle that no one knows who is going to win. But from the looks of it, it might be the males. Anyway, for 88 years they have been fighting to see who can run the fastest in the 4x100 Relay Race. A race that takes a team of runners to run 400 meters. But the question on everyone's mind is when will they have the same times in a race? That is why I have made this poster/Smore to show you when they could have the same times by using complicated math. Right before showing some medalist winners.
Tianna Bartoletta
Tianna Bartoletta was a gold medalist in the 2012 games who represented the USA. Her team had a time of 40.82
Michael Frater
Michael Frater was a gold medalist in the 2012 games who represented Jamaica. His team had a time of 36.84. He and Nesta Carter were together in the 2012 games as well as 2008 (Their time was 37.10).
Renate Stecher
Renate Stecher was a gold medalist in the 1976 games who represented East Germany. Her team had a time of 42.55. She was also in the 1972 games but as a silver medalist.
The Running Times Between Genders
To see when the running times will be the same, we need two things. They are the year of the game the event took play and the time of the winning team or the gold medalists, both male and female. To show how the winning times affect this research/data, the winning times will be shown with the men's on the left and the women's on the right.
1976-1988
As you can see, the men's time is greater than the women's by 4.72 in this picture. If you look closely, you will notice that the men's time is slowly decreasing (which is good) while the ladies' time decreased a little but mostly increased (which is bad).
1984-1996
In this picture, things do improve. The men's time increases but then decreases by 0.79 as it slowly increases. Meanwhile, the women's time increase a little with the increase of time being 0.3 from 1984 to 1996. But the men are winning by 4.26 at the end of 1996.
2000-2012
This one shows s good improvement to the ladies. They slowly decrease but increase a little but decrease a lot. Exactly by 1.13 from 2000 which so not bad. But the men's time slowly increases but then it decrease into a good enough time. The men are still winning by 3.98. Just to throw it in there, the time that the both genders improved from 1976-2012. The men improved by 1.49 while the women improved by 1.73 so the women had the most improvement.
My Mathematical Prediction
Although I may be just a sports writer, I do know how mathematics work. I had one of the best math teacher ever. I think his name was Mr. Soles or was it Coles? Anyway, I believe that through the observation on the table, you can see that the women's time is increasing more than the men's time which could lead to them having an intersection or a time period where their run time is the same. Unfortunately, their numbers are so far apart that it might there might not be an intersection in a future Olympics Games. So, I predict that the correlation (or intersection)
The Following
Will show the pictures of the data from a calculator. It is not the best picture but it will do, trust me. The first 3 pics are the men's time and the 2nd being the women's time.
The Graph
As you can see, the dots/squares are descending down. That is a good thing. But if you notice, there are some squares that go up then back down.
The Equation
This is a pretty complicated equation so let me break it down. The equation is y=-0.033x + 103.534 with x being unknown. The r represents that line of best fit which has a slope of -0.7919493.
The Line
You will notice that the line is not connecting the points and it shouldn't. This is because the line is the line of best fit which will help us on finding the interception. And the slope seems to be accurate given what the slope is (-0.7919493)
The Graph
You will notice that the dots are now Xs and this is because I don't want to cause confusion with the men's time graph. This graph shows a lot of descending from the first and second X but it slowly begins to increase but then decrease. A lot in the end.
The Equation
This is also a hard and complicated equation so let me break it down again. The equation is y= -0.0158333x + 73.4366666 with x being unknown. The r represents that line of best fit which has a slope of -0.4086446.
The Line
You will notice that the slope is obviously different. But the slope is greater than the men's as it does have a slope of -0.4086446. This means that the women's time decreases slower than the men which is bad if they want to catch up to the guys.
We are Almost Done
As the title says, we are almost done with the pictures, graphs, data, etc. After the following gallery about the correlation between the two graphs I showed you before and their interception. After that, I will inform you about the graphs x and y intercepts and the resources I used to make this Smore possible. So hang in there.
David Jacobs
He was one of the first male gold medalists in the event when it was created and added in 1912. He, along side Henry Maxintosh, Victor d'Arcy, and Willie Applegarth, represented Great Britain. Just wanted to put it out there.
The Colliding Graph
As you can see, it is both the graphs you saw earlier into one. Mind blowing, right? You may notice some differences like the the distance between long points to be shorter but that's because the graph is smaller than want you saw earlier.
The Line in the Graph
As you saw earlier, these are the lines of best fit from both graphs but with each having its own color line to not cause confusion. If you have noticed, you can see that there is a big gap in between the two lines on the right side but the gap is smaller on the left side. This means that the interception is not in the future but in the past. So, that may complicate things. Probably.
The Interception Point
As you can probably see, the point of interception is way for behind than what you saw before this and is probably complicated. It would seem as the if the pint of time that both the men's and women's time is in the past in 1753, if the Olympics excited them and the running time would be around 45.68 for it to be a avid running time. This could mean that we have evolved to run faster. Well... for the ones who are very academic. Or it just means we humans get faster every decade or century or so. Probably.
X and Y Intercepts
Now it is time to explain to you the importance of the x and y intercepts in this specific problem to find the interception. You see, both lines have a meaning which helped me with solving the problem. The x intercept represents the time of year which should be from 1976-2012. It's important since I am trying to find the interception of WHEN the times will be the same or around that point. The y intercept represents the times when the gold medalist finished or the running time. It is very important because the times help me find the line of best fit which will help me compare the two graphs to find the point of interception. It is pretty complicated.
In Conclusion
It would seem that we humans get faster every day but just a little. So little that we become gold medalists. Well… some out us, anyway. I hope you have enjoyed this article and find it to be very informative in the field of math and the Olympics. I wonder who is going to win?
Resources (Even I have my resources)
- http://www.olympic.org/content/results-and-medalists/eventresultpagegeneral/?athletename=&country=&sport2=32588&games2=&event2=32549&mengender=true&womengender=true&mixedgender=true&goldmedal=true&silvermedal=true&bronzemedal=true&teamclassification=true&individualclassification=true&winter=true&summer=true
- http://www.olympic.org/content/results-and-medalists/eventresultpagegeneral/?athletename=&country=&sport2=32588&games2=&event2=32567&mengender=true&womengender=true&mixedgender=true&goldmedal=true&silvermedal=true&bronzemedal=true&teamclassification=true&individualclassification=true&winter=true&summer=true
- https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tianna_Bartoletta
- https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michael_Frater
- https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Renate_Stecher
- https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Jacobs_(Welsh_athlete)
- Research not possible without the knowledge Mr. Coles gave me and a PRIZM calculator. Math data pictures are screen shots of the calculator.