In the first week of competition at this year’s Olympic Games, nine world records fell in the swimming pool, including 17-year old Missy Franklin’s new standard in the 200-meter backstroke and Rebeccas Soni’s personal best in the 200 breaststroke, even though many of the previous records were set by swimmers wearing now-banned extra-buoyant suits.
Chinese weightlifter Zhou Lulu beat Russian rival Tatiana Kashirina with a combined total of 333 kilograms (734 pounds) in a two-part event, after Kashirina became the first woman ever to snatch more than 150 kilograms (331 pounds). And on the track, Usain Bolt broke the Olympic record in the 100 meters, coming with 0.05 seconds of his world record mark of 9.58 seconds.
After more than 100 years of modern Olympic competitions — alongside often-repeated claims that the human race is butting up against the limits of athletic performance — how is it that athletes keep getting better?
The answer, experts say, involves a combination of incremental technological improvements, as well as a growing population of people attempting a larger variety of sports that they start earlier and stick with longer.
Discovery News via Boing Boing
