Event Time to Qualify for Finals Time to Medal Time to Win 100m 11.13 10.87 10.77 200m 22.63 22.27 21.93 400m 50.66 49.79 49.21



As we all got used to with the men's events, I'm not predicting any new world records in the women's sprints. In fact, I expect times to be fairly similar to the last Olympics (London 2012). Why is this you might ask? Simply, we really haven't seen substantial improvement in times over the last few years. If you look at the plots at the bottom of the page, you'll see lots of the events have been plateauing, so either we're approaching the limits of performance, or we're due for a jump in times in the next generation. Personally, I'm hoping for a jump in performance, but the data doesn't suggest that we should expect that anytime soon...



Women's Mid-Distance:

Event Time to Qualify for Finals Time to Medal Time to Win 800m 2:00.0 1:57.2 1:56.0 1500m 4:12.0 4:09.2 4:08.1



In the mid-distance races, I expect the women's 800m to be run pretty quick...and if Semenya is feeling good this could very well dip under that 1:56 mark. However, I really don't think that the 1500m will be run all that fast, as is typical with championship races. While the podium could be drastically shifted pending the investigation into Dibaba's coach and training group, I really expect a strategic final and don't think it will affect the winning time all that much.



Women's Distance:

Event Time to Qualify for Finals Time to Medal Time to Win 3000m SC 9:25.1 9:20.5 9:19.3 5000m 15:55.5 14:53.4 14:42.8 10000m N/A 31:07.7 31:01.8





It's these events where I have the least confidence, as the steeplechase and 10000m are very new Olympic events on the women's side, so I won't make too many comments besides that given the state of the event, I wouldn't be shocked if the steeplechase was run faster than I predicted as we may be in the golden age of women's steeple.





Women's Hurdles:

Event Time to Qualify for Finals Time to Medal Time to Win 100m HH 12.75 12.55 12.45 400m IH 54.61 53.90 52.96



Do not be surprised if the women's 100m hurdles is run a lot faster than I'm projecting, but this event is so unpredictable we will have to just wait and see who makes the finals. Just like on the men's side, if you have to pick an event where a record could be set at the Olympics, make it the high hurdles.





Women's Relays:

Event Time to Qualify for Finals Time to Medal Time to Win 4x100m 42.96 42.17 41.34 4x400m 3:27.5 3:23.0 3:18.7





I don't have a ton to say about the relays except I hope the women's 4x100m goes more like 2012 and not 2008 for the U.S. women. If we have more baton pass issues this year, something has to change with the program. Nonetheless, I wouldn't expect any earth-shattering times in the relays, similar to the open races.





Women's Jumps:

Event Distance/Height to Qualify for Finals Distance/Height to Medal Distance/Height to Win Long Jump 6.57 6.93 7.09 Triple Jump 14.05 14.87 14.96 High Jump 1.89 1.97 2.00 Pole Vault 4.55 4.86 4.95



Besides women's throws (see below), women's jumps is probably my least knowledgeable event. Personally, I'm pulling for the Randall Cunningham's daughter to win the high jump, but that's about as far as my knowledge goes. Forgive me fans of women's field events, I'm a distance runner so that's what I know most about!





Women's Throws:

Event Distance to Qualify for Finals Distance to Medal Distance to Win Shot Put 18.01 19.93 20.59 Discus 62.02 67.18 69.43 Hammer 71.01 76.08 79.35 Javelin 60.73 67.16 70.82







Select an Event 100 Meters 200 Meters 400 Meters 800 Meters 1500 Meters 5000 Meters 10000 Meters 110 Meters High Hurdles 400 Meters Intermediate Hurdles 3000 Meters Steeplechase 4x100 Meter Relay 4x400 Meter Relay Long Jump Triple Jump High Jump Pole Vault Shot Put Discus Hammer Javelin

Thanks to everyone who read the first blog post! I really didn't expect to have as many people read the blog as did...hopefully you all come back for post number 2! To catch up any new readers, last week I made projections of the time it would take to make the Olympic finals, win a medal, and win the gold in men's track and field events using regression analysis. This week, I've applied the same analysis to the women's track and field events. One disclaimer though, for many women's events there is a very limited data set, with some events not being contested at global championships until after 2000. This may limit some of the predictive utility of the regression analysis, but for most events, I'm pretty confident in the results.Like I said above, I don't know much at all about the women's throws. My thoughts in general about throws is that we still haven't reached a point where clean athletes can achieve what the heavily doped athletes of the 1970s and 1980s could...so don't expect any records to fall until our training catches up to what doping could do to athletes 30-40 years ago.Again, we have a graph here for you to play with and see just how the data looks that I used to generate these predictions. You'll be able to see just how little data (and trends!) there are for some women's events. I think physically humans improved the most rapidly between the 1950s-1970s, and we've been plateauing since so that really hurts when predicting results in events that have only been contested since 2008...Thanks again for reading, and stay tuned for the next post, likely to be a similar analysis for Olympic swimming!