What is man's speed limit?

By David Woods

A half-century ago, it was beginning to seem as if no one would ever run faster than Jesse Owens. After all, no one had for 20 years.

Then someone did.Gary native Willie Williams ran 100 meters in 10.1 seconds on Aug. 3, 1956, breaking Owens' 1936 mark by a tenth of a second. Since then, the record -- which comes with the title World's Fastest Human -- has been lowered 10 more times. It's now 9.77, co-owned by Justin Gatlin, who will try to lower it again today and Friday in the AT&T USA Outdoor Track and Field Championships at IUPUI's Carroll Stadium.

"I don't think it's going to go too much further," Williams, now 74, said last week.

Maybe not . . . except that it keeps falling. Someone always comes along. Which raises perhaps the most fundamental question in sports: How fast can man go? Jesus Dapena, an Indiana University biomechanics professor, said there must be a limit. A man will never run 100 meters in three seconds, for instance. But he said the limit can't be defined.

"There are a variety of people. We're looking here for the extreme," Dapena said. "Who's got the best muscles? There's a genetic factor in there. There's a training factor in there."

Indeed, things keep changing. Improving. More people compete from more countries, as evidenced by the record 202 nations at the 2004 Athens Olympics. Forty countries won medals in track and field, underscoring the sport's universality. Facilities and equipment are far more advanced than when Owens ran on cinder tracks. Today's athletes employ kinesiologists, nutritionists, massage therapists. Biomechanics experts evaluate everything from a sprinter's stride length to the number of steps per 100 meters (Gatlin said he takes 42). The issue of how low the record can go can also be seen as a math question. Even for the best minds, it's not easily solved.

Mathematical quandary

Mathematicians asked about the 100-meter record trot out the word "asymptote."

In calculus, that's the line that can forever approach a curve of changing slope but never crosses it. It defines the limit. An asymptote emerges when the line and the curve get ever closer, but by lesser amounts. Or, in this case, as the 100-meter record continues to be broken, but by lesser amounts.After studying the record's progression, Bob Glassey, an IU mathematics professor, said, "I'm looking for an asymptote here, and I don't see one." He said the times are decreasing, but not at a uniform rate.

Allen Weitsman, associate head of mathematics at Purdue University, said such a limit could be calculated only if all the parameters stay the same. And they don't. World records in the high jump, for instance, increased significantly when the technique changed from the head-first roll to the back-first flop. If someone were to discover a way to more efficiently use physiology in sprinting, Weitsman said, the model for 100-meter data would be destroyed. Any limit would have to be recalculated.

"Human beings, after all, we've been around for a teeny, teeny bit of time," Weitsman said. "We're really still in a stage where the physiology of some individual can be quite dramatically different from anyone who has come so far.

"Now, it's unlikely. But it's also a possibility."

Another factor, increasingly inescapable, is performance-enhancing drugs.

There is evidence of doping in sports as long ago as the 1960s, but drugs became the story at the 1988 Olympics, where Canada's Ben Johnson shattered the world record in the 100, only to have it discounted after he was proved to be on steroids. Since then, several track stars have been implicated, including Tim Montgomery, whose 2002 world record in the 100 was stripped last year. But in an era when all athletic performance is suspect, the current 100 meter record appears to be as authentic as any. Gatlin and his co-world record holder, Jamaica's Asafa Powell, have not been caught up in drug scandals, even by rumor. Indeed, their shared mark is faster than the best drug-aided times of Johnson and Montgomery. Dapena said that in the 1980s, with doping "totally gone wild," some records reached beyond the scope of reality. Now, however, times are following a normal trend, he said.

Faster and faster

Moreover, what may now seem implausible can later become realistic. Gatlin said he laughed when British sprinter Dwain Chambers recently suggested he could lower the 100-meter record to 9.65. Now it's no joke. Gatlin said he ran a less-than-perfect race when he clocked 9.77 last month at Doha, Qatar. He has run three successive races in less than 9.90, something no one had ever done.

"But after running consistently fast, and knowing that I have more left in the tank, I think a 9.6 is possible. I'm thinking a 9.69," Gatlin said.

How about faster? A 9.59? Williams, for one, said he couldn't see that coming soon. Williams went on to coach Gary West High School to five state championships and later coached at the University of Illinois. Back when he ran, events were hand-timed, with the lowest gradations being tenths of a second. Now that track is timed electronically, and times are carried to hundredths, records fall more often.

"I don't think I would have the (same) satisfaction of saying I broke the world record of some modern guy," Williams said. "The record has been held for a year, as opposed to a record that had stood for 20 years."

Former track star Carl Lewis, now 45 and pursuing a career in acting, said he didn't expect his 100 record to stand indefinitely. He lowered it to 9.86 in 1991, where it stayed for almost three years. The record might not drop into the 9.60s soon, Lewis said, but it inevitably will.

"I think that as long as people run times, people are going to break records," Lewis said. "I just really believe that."