track and field – The Sport Journal

Ancient Olympic Superstars and the Remarkable Skills They Could Teach Today’s Athletes

Authors: Raymond Stefani

Corresponding Author:
Raymond Stefani
25032 Via Del Rio
Lake Forest, CA 92630
Raystefani@aol.com
949-586-1823

Dr. Raymond Stefani is a professor emeritus of the California State University, Long Beach with over 160 publications covering individual sports, team sports and sports history

Ancient Olympic Superstars and the Remarkable Skills They Could Teach Today’s Athletes

ABSTRACT

A data base of Ancient Olympic events was exhaustively researched by the Perseus Project and combined into one table by Wikipedia, containing nearly 900 results. The Wikipedia table was sorted to obtain the distribution of events and to identify the most successful Olympians of Ancient Greece. From 776 BC through 277 AD, just 30 events were contested, eight of which were offered only once. An average of only 3.5 events were contested in each Olympics. Of the five sports, track and field (called athletics internationally) comprised 49% of all contested events with the 200 m stadion sprint, comprising 30% of all contested events. Competition was so highly focused that winning once was very difficult and winning repeatedly was remarkable. From the sorted winners, 12 superstars of antiquity are chosen for discussion. These superstars include the most unlikely winner in that men’s Olympics, a woman, Kyniska of Sparta, who became a double winner by owning and training the horses that won two chariot races. Leonides of Rhodes won all three of the major running events four times successively, for 12 individual wins, not exceeded until 2016 by Michael Phelps. Herodoros of Megara won the trumpeter’s competition nine consecutive times. Two wrestlers won the boy’s event followed later by five successive wins in the open competition. The emperor Nero of Rome won six times, showing venerability by acting and playing the lyre in public. The pentathlete Phayllos of Kroton outfitted and commanded a battleship at the 480 BC Battle of Salamis, helping Greece defeat Persia. One of the few recorded measurements of Ancient Greece, his long jump of 55 feet has been nearly duplicated by five successive standing long jumps, each employing a re-invented strategy for jumping with weights in each hand. The remarkable skills of those 12 may serve as inspirations for today’s athletes.

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U.S. Sports Academy2020-06-02T11:26:07-05:00January 17th, 2020|Research, Sports Studies and Sports Psychology|Comments Off

Examination of Athletic Best Performance Trends in Track and Field Over One Hundred Years’ History

Authors: Ran Wei and Yuanlong Liu

Corresponding author:
Ran Wei, MA
Western Michigan University
1903 W. Michigan Ave., Kalamazoo, MI, USA 49008-5426
Campus Site: Room 4024-4 Student Recreation Center
Phone: (269) 267-2493
Fax: (269) 387-2704
Email: ran.wei@wmich.edu

Ran Wei is a doctoral student in the PhD-EHD program of College of Education and Human Development. Her emphasis area is Sport Management in the department of Human Performance and Health Education. Dr. Yuanlong Liu is a professor and chair of the department of Human Performance and Health Education. His specialty is evaluation and measurement in Kinesiology. He serves as editor and associate editor among multiple journals.

Examination of Athletic Best Performance Trends in Track and Field Over One Hundred Years’ History

ABSTRACT

It is always interesting to predict future performance and explore human limits. In this study, 24 events (running, jumping, and throwing) were studied from men’s and women’s track and field events. The best yearly performance data and world record data since 1900 to 2018 were collected. All the events were analyzed by applying longitudinal analysis with scatterplots. The findings revealed that it is encouraging to expect the new world record in men’s shorter running events and women’s longer running events. However, the waiting time for the new world records in men’s longer running events, women’s shorter running events, and both their field events will be much longer as going into the 21^st century. For the overall track and field events, both men’s and women’s athletic performance may have reached the asymptotic level. Women’s athletic performances will not surpass men’s performances in track and field in the near future. To explore track and field performance trends and predict future world records, research of new methods and new prediction models are needed when the asymptotic level has been reached.

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U.S. Sports Academy2020-06-02T13:45:56-05:00September 5th, 2019|Commentary, Sports History|Comments Off

A Case Study of a Successful Men’s NCAA Division I Distance Running Coach: To what extent is Decision-making Humanistic?

Submitted by Seth E. Jenny and Glenn F. Hushman

Seth E. Jenny, Ph.D., is an assistant professor within the Department of Physical Education, Sport and Human Performance at Winthrop University. He is a certified USA Track and Field coach and American College of Sports Medicine Health-Fitness Specialist. Glenn F. Hushman, Ph.D., is an assistant professor within the Department of Health, Exercise, and Sports Sciences at the University of New Mexico. There he teaches undergraduate and graduate physical education teacher education courses.

Abstract

A coaching philosophy is a set of values that guide a coach’s behavior in practical instructional situations, and in overall human relationships. The humanistic coaching philosophy is an athlete-centered, collaborative, and non-manipulative process between athlete and coach, taking into account individual athlete differences and abilities, with the hopes of eventually developing a self-confident and self-regulated athlete. The aim of this case study was to investigate the coaching philosophy and methods of a successful men’s NCAA distance running coach and explore to what extent the stated coaching philosophy and coaching methods of the coach are humanistic. After data collection of coach and athlete interviews, training session observations, and artifact collection, the primary theme of coach/athlete decision-making emerged. Findings indicated that the coach’s stated philosophy and methods were humanistic in regards to having open collaborative decision-making with athletes in most areas of the program (e.g., weekly running mileage, warm-up and cool-down routines, etc.), but dictatorial methods were employed in planning interval and tempo workouts independent from athletes. This corresponded to perceptions of dependency in which the majority of athletes felt dependent on the coach for planning training schedules and effectively implementing interval and tempo workouts into a training plan. A major implication from these findings include that in areas where coaches are authoritative, athletes may not develop feelings of competence which could impact athletes’ abilities to self-regulate independently from the coach. This research was performed and submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in Physical Education, Sport and Exercise Science from the University of New Mexico.

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U.S. Sports Academy2016-04-01T09:25:05-05:00July 29th, 2014|Sports Coaching|Comments Off