Depending on which you prefer, the game has either done changed or gotten much more fierce in high school boys indoor sprinting. The eye test isn't enough to prove that point, though. If it seems like kids get faster every year, it's because they do. One of the best parts about being a track fan is that unlike nearly any other sport, you have incontrovertible evidence the the people competing right now are, on the whole, the best ever--the hard numbers back you up. So you can't claim that the game done changed just by saying that this batch of athletes are the fastest ever; they also have to have had made the biggest leap.
Game done changed, says a wistful and scared Cutty; Slim's rejoinder that game's the same, just got more fierce has always seemed like "weather's the same, just got a lot hotter" to me.
I chose two metrics to test the thesis that 2016 has already been a game-changing year in boys sprinting; both use the top ten athletes in the national rankings to get a larger sample. For both stats, I compiled the top ten times in the 200m and 400m by January 19 for each the years 2012-16. I didn't include the 60m for two reasons: variance is much smaller (and would therefore require more complex statistical analysis) in such a short event, and the 60 is such a specific skill that doesn't translate as much to outdoor track.
Stat One: Time Cut By Rank
For this one, I took the difference between the times for the same rank in consecutive years. For example, if the #1 time in the 400 in 2008 was 48.0, and the #1 time in the 400 in 2007 was 47.5, the #1 spot in 2007 would have a -0.5 time cut. The bigger the negative number, the more that the year showed crazy improvement. I averaged the time cut for each of the spots in the top 10 for each of the last four years.
Again, the 0.92 right below this sentence means that the #1 400 runner at this time in 2013 was actually slower--by 0.92 seconds--than the #1 runner at this time in 2012; the -1.11 right below this sentence means that the #1 runner at this time in 2015 was 1.11 seconds faster than the #1 runner at the same time in 2014.
| AVERAGE TIME CUT BY RANK IN THE BOYS 400M, 2013-16 | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|
Rank/Year | 2013 | 2014 | 2015 | 2016 |
1 | 0.92 | 0.49 | -1.11 | -0.26 |
2 | -0.06 | 0.54 | -0.86 | -0.45 |
3 | -0.22 | 0.68 | -0.35 | -0.66 |
4 | 0.18 | 0.32 | -0.31 | -0.68 |
5 | 0.18 | 0.17 | -0.35 | -0.53 |
6 | -0.24 | 0.13 | -0.22 | -0.56 |
7 | -0.14 | 0.04 | -0.18 | -0.61 |
8 | -0.15 | 0.05 | -0.18 | -0.42 |
9 | -0.31 | 0.16 | -0.24 | -0.44 |
10 | -0.23 | 0.02 | -0.17 | -0.38 |
AVG TIME CUT | -0.01 | 0.26 | -0.40 | -0.50 |
| AVERAGE TIME CUT BY RANK IN THE BOYS 200M, 2013-16 |
|---|
|
Rank/Year |
2013 |
2014 |
2015 |
2016 |
|
1 |
0.45 |
0.23 |
-0.32 |
-0.10 |
|
2 |
0.34 |
0.01 |
-0.34 |
-0.09 |
|
3 |
0.25 |
-0.01 |
-0.26 |
-0.16 |
|
4 |
0.00 |
-0.03 |
-0.29 |
0.07 |
|
5 |
-0.13 |
-0.05 |
-0.10 |
-0.08 |
|
6 |
-0.19 |
0.14 |
-0.22 |
-0.12 |
|
7 |
-0.18 |
0.13 |
-0.20 |
0.03 |
|
8 |
-0.23 |
0.17 |
-0.23 |
0.03 |
|
9 |
-0.24 |
0.17 |
-0.21 |
0.02 |
|
10 |
-0.32 |
0.16 |
-0.15 |
-0.02 |
|
AVG TIME CUT |
-0.03 |
0.09 |
-0.23 |
-0.04 |
Stat Two: Fastest Year By Rank
|
200 Rank |
Fastest Year? |
|
1 |
2012 |
|
2 |
2016 |
|
3 |
2016 |
|
4 |
2015 |
|
5 |
2016 |
|
6 |
2016 |
|
7 |
2015 |
|
8 |
2015 |
|
9 |
2015 |
|
10 |
2016 |
400 Rank | Fastest Year? |
1 | 2012 |
2 | 2016 |
3 | 2016 |
4 | 2016 |
5 | 2016 |
6 | 2016 |
7 | 2016 |
8 | 2016 |
9 | 2016 |
10 | 2016 |
The Verdict
In the 400, the conclusion--at least from these two metrics--is pretty clear. This is an outrageously, historically fast year. Each of the boys in the top ten is running, on average, a whopping half second faster than their counterpart from just a single year before. By that metric, this year is a full 25% better than any year in Obama's second term. And nine of the ten fastest boys in the country are the fastest of the last five years at their respective rankings. If that's a little clunky, take a look at the chart right above this paragraph.
In the 200, Slim Charles's modulation might be a little fairer. The game might not have changed completely there, just gotten more fierce. By time cut year-over-year, 2016 has actually only been the second best year of the last five. However, five of the ten fastest times for rankings in the top ten have come this year, a pretty good indicator of an excellent year.
Perhaps the most game-changing development of 2016, though, has been the emergence of the two fastest 200m/400m freshman in American history--in the same year! Tyrese Cooper and Brian Herron have the #1 and #2 (or tied for #2) freshman times ever for the 200 and 400, ensuring that wholesale and fierce changes to the game have only just begun.