200 vs 100 times

[anton400]

if you take my 200 time and divide by 2 the splits are .18 better than my 100 time. Does this mean i have poor acceleration??

[aaalba]

you do not have to divide 200m to see what is your 100m, like bolt runs 19.30 for 200m but his first 100 m is 10.xx and second is 9.4x, so i think if your divided 200m time is near 100m time so it is good. but if you loose 1 sec or something its bad.

[Youngy]

It's an interesting exercise to work out what a 100m runner swhould run for 200m and vice versa. I recently checked the top 20 200m/100m runners on the Athletics Australia 2008 rankings and found the average ratio was 2.002. That is for a 100m runner who runs 10.70 his 200m time should be around 21.42.

I have seen other variations where an elite sprinter's ratio is around 2.006.

Of that top 20, 10 were under 2.000 and 10 were above 2.000. Interestingly of the 10 below 2.000, 7 of them were recognised 400m runners. That is their 200m time was slightly better than the corresponding 100m time. (ie: one runner had a 21.51m 200m 10.81 100m combination).

Fundamentally an athlete's 100m PB should be half their 200m PB, with a variance of +/- 0.03.

If an athlete's ratio gets beyond say 2.01, then the athlete needs to work on their speed endurance.

Likewise if the ratio is getting into the 1.99 or less range he has the potential to improve his core speed and lower the 100m time. However if the athlete's best event tends to be the 400m then a ratio in the high 1.99's is probably about right.

[star61]

It's an interesting exercise to work out what a 100m runner swhould run for 200m and vice versa. I recently checked the top 20 200m/100m runners on the Athletics Australia 2008 rankings and found the average ratio was 2.002. That is for a 100m runner who runs 10.70 his 200m time should be around 21.42.

I have seen other variations where an elite sprinter's ratio is around 2.006.

Of that top 20, 10 were under 2.000 and 10 were above 2.000. Interestingly of the 10 below 2.000, 7 of them were recognised 400m runners. That is their 200m time was slightly better than the corresponding 100m time. (ie: one runner had a 21.51m 200m 10.81 100m combination).

Fundamentally an athlete's 100m PB should be half their 200m PB, with a variance of +/- 0.03.

If an athlete's ratio gets beyond say 2.01, then the athlete needs to work on their speed endurance.

Likewise if the ratio is getting into the 1.99 or less range he has the potential to improve his core speed and lower the 100m time. However if the athlete's best event tends to be the 400m then a ratio in the high 1.99's is probably about right.

I recently found some rankings which listed the best 100, 200, and 400m times for the top sprinters in history, which ended up being about 250 sprinters. While I haven't checked my figures, the ratio of 200m to 100m is as follows...


Rank Mean Min Max
1-50 1.988 1.9083 2.037
51-100 1.988 1.9366 2.035
101-150 1.982 1.9164 2.050
151-200 1.976 1.9313 2.047
201-250 1.983 1.9419 2.035
Mean All 1.983