Q1.
Gather the timings of the winners of the races — 100 m, 200 m, and 400 m for men and women in the last two Olympic games. Calculate and compare their speeds. In which event is the speed the fastest?
Answer
Method: for each event, speed = distance ÷ winning time. Look up the official timings on the Olympics website or in a newspaper archive; the sample below uses the winning times of the Tokyo 2020 and Paris 2024 Games, rounded to two decimal places.
| Event | Games | Winning time (s) | Speed = distance ÷ time (m/s) | Speed (km/h) |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 100 m, men | Tokyo 2020 | 9.80 | 100 ÷ 9.80 = 10.20 | 36.7 |
| 100 m, men | Paris 2024 | 9.79 | 100 ÷ 9.79 = 10.21 | 36.8 |
| 200 m, men | Tokyo 2020 | 19.62 | 200 ÷ 19.62 = 10.19 | 36.7 |
| 200 m, men | Paris 2024 | 19.46 | 200 ÷ 19.46 = 10.28 | 37.0 |
| 400 m, men | Tokyo 2020 | 43.85 | 400 ÷ 43.85 = 9.12 | 32.8 |
| 400 m, men | Paris 2024 | 43.40 | 400 ÷ 43.40 = 9.22 | 33.2 |
| 100 m, women | Tokyo 2020 | 10.61 | 100 ÷ 10.61 = 9.43 | 33.9 |
| 100 m, women | Paris 2024 | 10.72 | 100 ÷ 10.72 = 9.33 | 33.6 |
| 200 m, women | Tokyo 2020 | 21.53 | 200 ÷ 21.53 = 9.29 | 33.4 |
| 200 m, women | Paris 2024 | 21.71 | 200 ÷ 21.71 = 9.21 | 33.2 |
| 400 m, women | Tokyo 2020 | 48.36 | 400 ÷ 48.36 = 8.27 | 29.8 |
| 400 m, women | Paris 2024 | 48.17 | 400 ÷ 48.17 = 8.30 | 29.9 |
Comparison: the average speed is highest in the 100 m and 200 m sprints — they come out almost equal, at about 10.2 m/s for men and 9.3 m/s for women — and it is clearly lowest in the 400 m (about 9.2 m/s and 8.3 m/s). So the speed is fastest in the short sprints, and it falls as the race gets longer.
Why the longer race is slower: a sprinter cannot keep top speed for very long. In the 100 m almost the whole race is run at full speed; in the 400 m the runner must hold something back to avoid tiring before the finish. Notice also that the 200 m average can equal or beat the 100 m average — because in the 100 m a large part of the time goes in getting up to speed from a standing start, while in the 200 m that slow start is spread over twice the distance.
Do it with fresh data: use the timings from the most recent Games and redo the division yourself — the pattern (100 m ≈ 200 m > 400 m) will stay the same even though the numbers change.