Five Fast Olympic Facts

NSWIS Principal Scientist Kenneth Graham has learnt a lot during his 20 years supporting athletes to become world’s best at the NSWIS. While working with some of the world’s leading brands and athletes in the area of research, Kenneth has acquired some interesting facts that will get you thinking …

Here are Kenneth’s five fast facts:

1. Usain Bolt will get close to 44.5km/h in his 100m race. This is fast enough to get a speeding ticket in a school zone.

2. In the marathon events the men will run at approximately 20.6km/h (69.9 seconds per 400m) and the women 18.7km/h (77 seconds per 400m). Try doing these on your local 400m athletics track.

3. The world record pace in the track cycling sprint flying 200m is 77 km/h (men) and 69.3 km/h (women)

4. Heavyweight male rowers in maximal exercise pump around 40 litres of blood through their heart each minute. This would fill 20 two litre milk containers in one minute – each container in 3 seconds

5. Divers performing 4 ½ somersault dives spin at around 1200 degrees per second. This is better than three complete somersaults each second.