Looking at the fastest one-hundred 100 metre runs in history with raw data from WorldAthletics.org throws up some interesting statistics.
There are a lot of athletes who have run a top 100 time who have served doping ban(s):
Those who have served a doping ban are in italics in the table above. 68 out of the top one-hundred 100m times were run by athletes who have served or are serving doping suspensions. Of the others, Maurice Greene used to outsprint [doper] Asafa Powell easily. Plenty of question marks remain on around most of the other athletes.
The nations represented by the athletes who achieved the fastest 100m runs in history are given above. 96% Jamaica and USA….and a lot of Jamaican ethnicity in those who did not represent Jamaica.
Effect of Wind Speed on Fastest 100m Race Times
Looking at the wind speed for the fastest 100m runs, the average was a 0.651m/s tailwind. Only 23/100 were run into a headwind, and only 2/100 were run into a headwind in excess of -1 m/s.
The maximum headwind in the top 100 times was a -1.3 m/s for the 24th fastest 100m run in history (9.77s), by Usain Bolt in Brussels in Sept 2008 while beating doper Asafa Powell’s joint 67th best ever 100m run in history (9.83s). Other than that race, there are no fastest 100m track times in the top one-hundred list with a headwind stronger than -0.5 m/s.
This article: Sprinting in the Wind (2011) covers the effect of wind speed on the times runs in 100m races. For every 0.1m/s of tailwind, the runners get a time advantage of 0.006 seconds, and for every 0.1m/s of headwind (shown as -0.1m/s), the runners’ times take a 0.005 second hit.
Adjusting the times of the performances in the top 100 best times in history so that they are all normalised to a 0.0m/s is a way to make a fairer comparison of the relative quality of the performances.
The table above (click on it to view it in full size) shows how the rankings are changed when wind is taken out of the equation.
Usain Bolt’s 9.77s into a 1.3m/s headwind for example jumps from 20th to 4th place in the all time rankings – equivalent to a 9.705 second run.
Tyson Gay’s joint 3rd fastest run in history of 9.69 seconds in Shanghai with a legal limit 2m/s tailwind falls down to joint 29th place, being equivalent to a no wind 9.81s.