Two Minute Thousand wrote:
Don’t forget Coriolis force, which gives runners (particularly 200 m sprinters) running on tracks in the southern hemisphere a bit of help making the turn. Perhaps training south of the equator is a disadvantage for competing in the north?
The Coriolis effect is not relevant unless an object is changing latitudes while moving. The latitude change of at most ~100m on a track segment has no measurable effect. In any case, the Coriolis effect will cause a freely moving object going north or south to appear to move sideways, so it’s neither an advantage or disadvantage for a track runner even on north-south segments because they are consciously moving in circles sticking to the lane anyway.