Change of world-record rankings of shot put and hammer throw due to the effects of Earth rotation and athlete's height

The differences between the consecutive world-records of shot put and hammer throw tendentiously decrease. Therefore, nowadays it would be worth taking into account the influence of certain environmental factors on the range L, such as the latitude and release azimuth direction. Both factors exert influence on L by the centrifugal acceleration a(centrigugal) and Coriolis acceleration a(Coriolis) induced by the Earth's rotation. The aim of this work is to reveal how the world-record ranking numbers would change, if a(centrigugal) and a(Coriolis) as well as the athletes' height h were taken into account during the validation of the outdoor world records of senior female and male shot-putters and hammer-throwers. Using computer modelling, we reconstruct here the release velocities v of shots and hammers and the normalized muscle work of shot-putters achieved at the 20 best consecutive world records. We determined numerous changes of world-record ranking numbers of shot put and hammer throw due to the influence of a(centrigugal), a(Coriolis) and h. Height h has the largest effect on the range L, a(centrigugal) has a medium influence, and a(Coriolis) possesses the least impact on L. The physically most correct way would be to consider the release velocity v of the shot/hammer (easily measurable with an ultrasound/laser Doppler gauge) as the real performance of athletes, because it is practically independent of the environmental factors, and thus is a much better ranking measure of world records than the range.

Automated summary

This study reveals the effects of centrifugal acceleration, Coriolis acceleration, and athlete's height on the world-record ranking of shot put and hammer throw. Height has the largest impact on range, followed by centrifugal acceleration, while Coriolis acceleration has the least impact. Using the release velocity of the shot/hammer as a better measure of world-record ranking than the range.