Event Time to Qualify for Finals Time to Medal Time to Win 100m 10.05 9.87 9.76 200m 20.24 19.92 19.52 400m 44.83 44.24 43.57

45 years! Now we all know that the next freakishly fast athlete will appear one day and break Bolt's records, but that's not something that will be predicted with regression analysis.



Men's Mid-Distance:

Event Time to Qualify for Finals Time to Medal Time to Win 800m 1:45.3 1:44.0 1:43.6 1500m 3:39.7 3:33.6 3:32.9 The first thing you might notice is that I project no new world records to be set in the sprints at the Rio Olympics. Why is that you might ask? Take the men's 100m dash for example, since the 1972 Olympics, the world record has been broken just three times at the Olympic Games. While times are consistently improving in these events, if you look at Usain Bolt's phenomenal 2008 Olympics, his world record-setting times are deviations from the trend. Using the entire body of historical data and regression analysis, it is projected that Bolt's 9.58 would win every global championship for the nextNow we all know that the next freakishly fast athlete will appear one day and break Bolt's records, but that's not something that will be predicted with regression analysis.

Again, don't expect a world record in mid-distance, the only real hope for that would be with David Rudisha, but I don't think we'll ever see another 800m final like we did in London. There's not too much to say with these events besides to expect them both to come down to who has the best last 100m.





Men's Distance:

Event Time to Qualify for Finals Time to Medal Time to Win 3000m SC 8:22.3 8:08.9 8:06.0 5000m 13:51.6 13:50.3 13:49.6 10000m N/A 27:13.0 27:06.2

What is probably most surprising about men's distance is that the time required to win the Men's 5000m has been getting slower over the last decade! Now that's not to say that the athletes competing in the race are less talented, but rather that the long distance races have become a tactical affair in recent years. Don't get me wrong, if a small group of athletes (I'm looking at you East Africans) decides to set a hot pace in either of these races to take the sting out of Mo Farah's kick, we could be looking at times 40-50 seconds faster in the 5000m in particular, but I just don't expect it. Everyone in the race knows if Farah is in it on the last lap off a slow pace, he has a brutally fast finish, but nobody wants to serve as the de facto rabbit to neutralize his kick. To put this winning time in perspective, it is slower than the winning time at the NCAA Division I Outdoor Championships in each of the past 6 years. Sadly, the only way this is going to change anytime soon is if somebody pulls a Prefontaine and sets a brutal pace the first 3200m.





Men's Hurdles:

Event Time to Qualify for Finals Time to Medal Time to Win 110m HH 13.28 13.06 12.89 400m IH 48.45 48.30 48.10

Given perfect conditions, the high hurdles is probably the best chance for a world record to be set on the track, given the pool of talent in this event every year. However, one too many clipped hurdles could dramatically change the landscape of these events. On the other hand, we shouldn't expect the world record to be in danger in the intermediate hurdles, we just aren't in the glory days of this event.





Men's Relays:

Event Time to Qualify for Finals Time to Medal Time to Win 4x100m 38.47 37.92 37.24 4x400m 3:01.2 2:59.1 2:56.7

The real question here is, can the US 4x100 get the baton around the track legally? If they can do that, which they have struggled to do in recent years, the time to get on the podium could drop significantly, as no other country can likely push the Jamaicans as much as the Americans in the 4x100m.





Men's Jumps:

Event Distance/Height to Qualify for Finals Distance/Height to Medal Distance/Height to Win Long Jump 7.91 8.20 8.34 Triple Jump 16.95 17.67 18.09 High Jump 2.30 2.35 2.39 Pole Vault 5.48 5.75 5.89

The jumps can be a tricky event to call, you never know if there will be a favorable wind that pushes the competitors further than ever before. However, don't expect an altitude boost like what was seen in Mexico City, the Rio Olympic Stadium only lies 30m above sea level. I'll be the first to admit, I don't know much about field events, I put most of my attention on what happens on the track, but I am curious as to whether the Buffalo Bills wide receiver, Marquise Goodwin can wind up on the podium...





Men's Throws:

Event Distance to Qualify for Finals Distance to Medal Distance to Win Shot Put 20.38 21.58 22.08 Discus 62.20 65.47 68.23 Hammer 75.48 80.13 82.08 Javelin 81.56 87.03 90.16

Again, I don't know too much about these events, besides that peak performances have been relatively static for the last 30 years. So if we see a world record in any of these events, I would be shocked.









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

Keep an eye out over the next few weeks as we preview other events including women's track and field and men's/women's swimming! In the future, we will delve deeper into the data for track in particular as we take a historical look at the sport. Just so you all can see what I was working with when I made my projections (and because everybody loves a good graph), I've put an interactive plot below. Feel free to play around with it and look at how performances have changed since 1896 in men's track and field. I'd like to thank my brother Michael for his hard work and determination in putting together this interactive plot.

Hello audience (or all 10 of you that read this first post)! Before I get into what really drew you in, the Rio Preview, just a bit of an introduction to the blog. I'm a PhD student (hopefully not for much longer) who gets bored with his work more often than he should and spends valuable time trying to draw correlations from sports data. My brother suggested that I stop just wasting my time doing stats just for fun and put my thoughts out on the internet for all of the world to see - so here we are!With the Rio Olympics coming up at the end of the summer, what better way to kick of the blog than by making predictions about the results. Full disclosure, I'm not here to tell you who is going to win what event, most of them (especially long distance) are so unpredictable in championship races that I'd be lucky to get one out of three medals right in a given race. So what I'm going to tell you is how well athletes will need to do to end up on the podium. You might be asking how I'm going to do that, well the answer is simple...I'm going to use math! To keep it simple, I gathered data from every global track and field championship since 1896 and used regression analysis to predict the necessary performance to make a global final, get on the podium, and win a gold medal. You won't find predictions for any road events (marathon or race walking) due to variability in course difficulty and you won't find anything for the decathlon (yet) since the scoring system has changed several times over the years.