5 Important Numbers & Stats from 2015 World Championships

I posted a lot of messages on Twitter and Facebook during the 2015 World Championships in Beijing. If you haven’t connected with me on either channel, please do so, it’s a great way for me to microblog. Sometimes, small snippets do not make great articles. And I get a lot more comments in Facebook than I do on this Blog.

But to summarize, here are 5 good takeaways you need to know as a coach and athlete.

1. Races come down to the 1/1000 of a Second

Always run through the line.

In the 100m Men’s Semi-Final, 3 men ran 9.99 where the 8th and 9th positions were tied down to the 1/1000 of a second, so they both made the finals. (Luckily they have 9 lanes now)

And of course, 2 men tied for 3rd in 9.92, again, going down to the 1/1000 of a second:

We also saw the Men’s 200m come down 0.002 seconds to determine 3rd and 4th.

And we saw it in the Men’s 4x400m relay. I could go on, and on…

Lesson? Run though the line, and time your lean properly. (Sorry, Justin)

2. Running the Perfect 400m

Wayde van Niekerk ran his 1st 200m 0.8 seconds slower than his 200m SB, and his 2nd 200m 2 full seconds slower. Below is the result. Perfect execution.

The sweet spot is running between 0.8 and 1.5 seconds from your 200m SB, not PB! And aim for a differential of 1.5 to 2 seconds between the first 200 and second 200.

3. Anaso Jobodwana 2 week Taper

Thanks to Stuart McMillan for sharing this key information:

Of course, don’t copy this. Understand the “why and how” he did what he did, and apply it to your next major race. Anything is possible, but be aware that it took Stu 16 years of trial and error to get to this level, which led to a 200m bronze medal behind Usain Bolt and Justin Gatlin.

4. Allyson Felix 47.7 Split, Javon Francis 43.52

Everyone is talking about these two, especially Javon Francis’s crazy anchor leg, but according to IAAF, it was the fastest of the race: 43.52 split! And let’s not forget the 3rd leg for Belgium: 43.58!

Full splits provided by the IAAF here:

2015 IAAF WC 4×400 Women splits

2015 IAAF WC 4×400 Men splits

NOTE: the first 2 splits are hand timed, due to the stagger, as it should be.

NOTE 2: Splits mean nothing when you don’t a gold medal.