After three weeks of blood, sweat and tears, with the world’s most talented athletes gathering to battle for their place in the history books, the Paris Olympics is finally drawing to a close.

As always, there were exceptional feats of athleticism on display, and some athletes propelled themselves further and faster than any had before, breaking 17 world records at the event.

However, this does represent a decrease since the previous games in Tokyo in which 20 world records were broken.

In fact, the number has been in decline since Beijing 2008, when 30 world records were broken.

The Paris games were the lowest figure in 20 years despite an increase in the number of events.

The secrets are out

“We’ve probably reached a little bit of a point of diminishing returns now,” says Dr Thomas Brownlee, associate professor in applied sport sciences at the School of Sport, Exercise and Rehabilitation Sciences at the University of Birmingham.

“After the Atlanta games in 1996, people really stepped their game up and national sporting institutes really looked into how they could make these big improvements.

“That was across everything, be it how people trained, how people recovered, nutrition, strategies, training specifics, talent identification… 20 years ago, nutrition wasn’t really considered at all. But now everyone’s doing it.”

He added: “At the same time, there were big technological advantages – think of Dave Brailsford for British cycling and jokes about ‘extra round wheels’, all that kind of stuff.

“In the following games, all the way up to London, the fruit of those labours were really reaped and you saw those massive improvements.

“What we’re seeing now is that everyone’s kind of catching up and doing similar stuff. The secrets are out a little bit.”

GB’s women cyclists smashed record three times over

Indeed, continuing advances in cycling – whether the technology of the bike itself or in track design – mean it is an area where improvements continue to be made.

With five toppled, the velodrome was the arena in which the largest number of world records were broken in Paris.

That’s excluding several events where a record was overturned repeatedly, such as Team GB’s women’s cycling team smashing the team sprint record three times over in successive rounds on their way to gold.

A combination of factors created ideal conditions for cyclists this year, including the heat within the arena itself making the air less dense, a fine-tuned track shape and surface, and ever-improving equipment.

In contrast, there had been speculation that conditions in the aquatics arena were less than ideal, with reports that the Olympic pool’s relatively shallow depth of 7ft may have slowed down athletes due to its effect of increasing turbulence in the pool.

Nevertheless, four swimming world records were surpassed. Although this is slightly below expectations leading up to the events, and lower than the number set at Tokyo 2020 (six) and Rio 2016 (eight) it was more than in any other sport besides cycling, and a continuation in swimming records overtaking those set in 2008 and 2009, before a ban on controversial LZR swimsuit technology was imposed.

The sports with the biggest potential for performance improvements will continue to be those where there’s more technology in use for the event, says Dr Brownlee.

“The kinds of sports where equipment can be employed might be where you continue to see the improvements. Other ones would be less established Olympic sports, where you have funding injections,” he says.

Longest standing records

Some disciplines, particularly in athletics, have experienced more of a slowdown in new records being set, with some very long-lasting records in particular proving difficult to budge.

Among the longest-standing athletics records of events that are still competed today are those in sprinting and middle-distance running.

“There are some world records that do have question marks around them, from before the 90s in particular. There exists some scepticism around the practices leading to how they were obtained,” says Dr Brownlee.

“We hope that the advances in sports science and technology will eventually allow athletes to surpass them. We’ve seen a couple of people getting close to some of those records already.”

Team GB’s Keely Hodgkinson has the 41 year old 800m record firmly in her sights, following her Paris gold medal victory.

“I think that those gaps will be closed, so hopefully in time there’s no world records with potential question marks next to them,” Dr Brownlee says.

But sometimes it is just a case of exceptional individuals at the top of their game, he adds.

“Usain Bolt is an obvious example, as well as some of the men’s jump world records.”

USA’s Mike Powell’s 1991 long jump of 8.95m, Cuba’s Javier Sotomayor’s 1993 high jump of 2.45m, and Great Britain’s Jonathan Edwards’ triple jump of 18.29m all remain unbroken to date.

Pole vaulting records, on the other hand, continue to be toppled at pace by Sweden’s Armand Duplantis, who has broken the world record nine times since 2020.

He has raised the bar by 1cm each time – perhaps a savvy tactic considering athletes are awarded $100,000 (£78,700) every time they break the world record. He made it to 6.25m in Paris, but with some space between him and the bar there is speculation that he has yet to reach his limit.

And Ukrainian Yaroslava Mahuchikh overturned a long-standing jump record earlier this year, beating Bulgaria’s Stefka Kostadinova’s 36 year old women’s high jump record by 1cm to reach 2.1m.

Catching up to speeds

Despite these records remaining undefeated, there has been a trend of a larger number of athletes catching up to speeds that would have landed them in medal positions in previous Olympics.

In the thrilling men’s 100m sprint final, USA’s Noah Lyles took gold with a time of 9.784 seconds, just a fraction ahead of Jamaica’s Kishane Thompson (9.789 seconds). But all eight men finished in under 10 seconds in a wind-legal race – making it the fastest in history.

Botswana’s Letsile Tebogo’s time of 9.86 seconds, which landed him in sixth place in Paris, would have earned him a bronze medal in Tokyo and silver in Rio.

Are we reaching the peak?

Despite the apparent slowdown, we’re still a way off reaching the peak of human performance, Dr Brownlee says.

“I don’t think that we are fully plateauing. Over the next 10-20 years we will see improvements with a better understanding of genetics to consider an individual athlete’s needs.

“What nutrition they need, or how they recover better, exactly how much sleep they need, exactly how they should be training. Really enabling that individualisation and squeezing each last per cent of improvement.

“And the technology [sportswear and sporting equipment] will continue to come on in leaps and bounds, as well as track surfaces continuing to improve.

“Optimisation has still got a way to go yet.”

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