Athletics world record progression

What is this?

This is a visualization of all the athletics world records. The graph shows how many percent the records have improved since the beginning of the 1950s. Move the mouse over the lines to list all the records.

It is based on data from IAAF Statistics Handbook of 2009 with newer records added manually.

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Why do some records fall?

In a few cases the records have, according to the graph, impaired. This is due to one of the following reasons:

• Sprint records were reset with the introduction of electronical timing in the 1970s.
• Some of the early records in 400 m and 800 m were run on 440 yard tracks (402,34 m).
• The decathlon records have been recounted according to the current point system.
• In javelin the world record was reset twice for men and once for women when the javelin model was changed.

Who made this visualization?

That would be me, Jens Finnäs. You can read more about how this visualization was done on my blog, Dataist. Contact me on jens.finnas@gmail.com, @jensfinnas or @the_dataist.