Sports Illustrated's admission of responsibility for Bob Hayes's reputed 8.6s anchor leg at the Tokyo Olympics opens up an interesting view of its feasibility.
Did SI's reporter wait opposite the mid-line of the fourth passing zone, start his watch as Hayes arrived, dash 100m to the right, and stop his watch at 8.6s as Hayes reached the finish? I don't think so. Therefore he must have used the standard method of those days by waiting opposite the passing zone, starting his watch at the gun, stopping it as Hayes reached the mid-line, and deducting that time from the official winning time. Since 8.6s is the remainder from 39.0s, SI's time must have been 30.4s. The distinction is important because, before Tokyo, the 30.4s would have been a TRUE time - with two built-in deficits due to anticipation by both the SI reporter and the official timekeepers at the finish. But the 39.0s (which we now know was 39.05s rounded down according to the rules of the day, and 39.06s on today's rule) was a fully automatic time (FAT), without the anticipation that shortened the SI time. SI's split and the winning time are not comparable unless some recalculation is done. Comparison of automatic and manual times for races where starter and timekeepers were 100m apart (actually at the 1972 Olympics) showed an average discrepancy of 0.24s, which was adopted by the IAAF as the "official" conversion factor. It is the best we have. It must be added to the SI time. Add 0.24s to the SI time: 30.4s + 0.24s = 30.64s From the official time subtract the new SI time: 39.06s - 30.64s = 8.42s Compare that time for 100m in the relay with Hayes's true time in the 100m final, now known to be 10.05s. The difference is 1.63s and is due to the fact that Hayes had a running start in the relay. The best evidence available suggests that for top 100m sprinters a running start is worth close to 1.1s on average - and apparently irrespective of the decade. (The evidence is long and involved, but is available to anyone who would like to study it. Please e-mail me off-line.) For a sprinter with a comparatively slow pick-up - in fact Carl Lewis - the advantage could rise to 1.2s. But Hayes displayed a super-fast pickup at Tokyo, so we should expect the advantage in his case to be less than 1.1s - maybe even 1.0s. Hardly the 1.63s that SI would have us believe. This does not cast doubt on reports that Hayes gained 6m compared with third-placed France in that relay. It compares Hayes with Hayes. But it suggests that SI's watch was about 0.5s fast, that Hayes's legendary 8.6s belongs in the same category as Flo-Jo's 10.49s and should be revised to, say, 9.1s. (Pace Justin Clouder.) P.S. The 100m final was aided by a 1.05 m/s wind, worth 0.07s according to the latest research (by Tony Ward-Smith). Unfortunately no-one thought to measure the wind during the relay.
