Lower bounds for athletic performance

This paper analyses a set of world records in athletic running events to extract long-term bounds for those events. The approach adopted is to identify a single parameter to represent the achieved standard of athletic performance at a series of fixed intervals. The long-term behaviour of this single parameter is then investigated by fitting a variety of non-linear models and restrictions on the accuracy of the fits are discussed. The paper concludes with a range of estimates for each of the events considered in the original data set.