I can't believe no one has mentioned the biggest hole yet in your argument:
Of the 168 (or whatever the real number is) Americans who broke 14:20 in the 5k last year, how many do you think had broken 14:20 in previous years? Just because there are 168 people who run sub-14:20 in a year doesn't mean there are 168 NEW people who have run that kind of time for the first time.
Considering that, your emistate of 120 per year looks ridiculously high.
Since I am probably one of the few people on this board who has undergone the peer review process much less actually served as a reviewer, I would say that your work fails miserably.
I do not even know where to begin....
Seems sad to jump on the bashing bandwagon, but the fact that you're providing a reference for "orders of magnitude" is evidence of the extent to which you don't understand what you're doing.
If orders of magnitude are all you're concerned with, you can't write your finding with 5 significant figures (in the thread title no less). This implies a level of precision that you've admitted you don't have. At best, you could say 4 x 10^4, although other points suggest you don't even have this level of precision in your analysis. I guess you could say 1 in 10^3-10^6, but who really cares at that point?
yeahhhh wrote:
why not start here for your top 30?http://www.trackandfieldnews.com/lists/display_list.php?list_id=2&sex_id=M&year=2006
I guess I should have expected it, since probably 1 in 100 of us has ever picked up a TaFnews, but why haven't you guys ever heard of a World List and a U.S. List?
They used to publish them every month I think in TaFnews, and of course at the end of the year they had Yearly Lists for both. I haven't bought one in years, but I know right where to look for track stats like that.
stumbler wrote: If orders of magnitude are all you're concerned with, you can't write your finding with 5 significant figures (in the thread title no less). This implies a level of precision that you've admitted you don't have.
Point taken. I realized this as I wrote the thread title and message, but decided to keep the innapropriate number of sig fig's anyway because it would draw more interest in the discussion. (And as it turns out, a lot of negative feedback). I won't quit my day job.
To the more mean-spirited folks who replied, all I can say is you can kiss my 14:19 ass. Unless of course you've run faster. About a 1:40,074 chance of that. Just kidding.
Check your facts. The WR in 1948 was already 13:59 by Gunder Hagg (in 1942). Zatopek had run at least 8 times under 14:15 by the time he had won his first gold medal (at 10000m) in 1948. He was the second man to run under 14min (13:58) in 1954. That year the record went down under 13:50 and was dropped by another 20s in the next 2 years.
If you start doing any analysis, check your facts first. It looks very bad to be wrong as early as introduction.
You're right...those were Olympic records I named, not world records. I'm surprised no one caught that sooner.
I think the analysis is wonderful! There's absolutely nothing wrong with it. It's a great idea and you're a great man for thinking of it. These guys are just upset that their winkies aren't as big as yours. They're jealous but don't let it get you down.
Jenna Jameson wrote:
Mandingo is one in a million for an alltogether different reason...
What happened to all that "one in a million" talk?
Lloyd Christmas wrote: What happened to all that "one in a million" talk?
OK, all the guys except Mandingo are jealous that their winkies aren't as big as Darryl Dorkman's. There's no way Dorkman ran 14:19 with a hog like that.
Kip is a Kenyan word meaning "not born in the USA".
People really do get a bit anal on these discussion boards, don't they. FYI, this is not an actual dissertation, so you might want to take a chill pill and enjoy the discussion for what it is: entertainment.
That being said, this statistic makes me wonder, what other milestone track time barriers make someone similarly rare? How rare is a sub-4:00 miler, for example. Is there a worldwide list somewhere of people that have run sub-4:00, as I imagine there is a list of Mt. Everest summitters?
Are you telling me that in a country where most of your sports are so crushingly boring that you dress them up by drowning the viewer in stats, you don't have an online athletics ranking list? You guys are living in the dark ages.
I guess it's easy for Great Britain to keep stats when they've got men running over 16:00 for 5k in their top 10 for this year: 16:01.0 Hussain Jama
And the USA sucks? Go fix your teeth
4:06.9 wrote:
I guess it's easy for Great Britain to keep stats when they've got men running over 16:00 for 5k in their top 10 for this year: 16:01.0 Hussain Jama
And the USA sucks? Go fix your teeth
So the best reply you could come up with was to point out that the track season hasn't started yet. And how long did it take to think up the teeth thing? You must be a really funny guy.
It's almost May...we have Special Olympians that have run 5k in 16:01 already...
Britain used to be the country of firsts...first to summit Everest, first to break the 4:00 mile. You were pretty tough. Now, you bend over for anyone. Case in point: Iran and the recent hostage embarrassment.