ArticlePloS one2008
The citius end: world records progression announces the completion of a brief ultra-physiological quest.
Article in PloS one, 2008. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 25 papers.
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The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
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Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
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Who cites it
25 citing papers in PubMed.
- Greatest of All Time: Development of a Ranking System to Determine the Most Successful Olympic and World Championship Runners Since 1896.Sports medicine (Auckland, N.Z.) · 2026Article
- Article
- COVID-19 affected elite track-and-field athletes' Olympic preparation before Tokyo 2020 compared to Rio 2016.Scientific reports · 2025Article
- Analysis of sports records evolution and limits based on integrated features.Scientific reports · 2024Article
- Does swing leg braking matter in long jump take-off? A 3-D kinematic analysis based on elite athletes.Heliyon · 2024Article
- The potential impact of advanced footwear technology on the recent evolution of elite sprint performances.PeerJ · 2023Article
- Transwoman Elite Athletes: Their Extra Percentage Relative to Female Physiology.International journal of environmental research and public health · 2022Review
- Declining track and field performance trends in recent years in the Austrian best results 1897-2019.Journal of musculoskeletal & neuronal interactions · 2021Article
- Are We Reaching the Limits ofFrontiers in physiology · 2017Review
- Has Athletic Performance Reached its Peak?Sports medicine (Auckland, N.Z.) · 2015Review
- Performance development in adolescent track and field athletes according to age, sex and sport discipline.PloS one · 2015Article
- Prevalence of doping use in elite sports: a review of numbers and methods.Sports medicine (Auckland, N.Z.) · 2015Review
- The effect of course length on individual medley swimming performance in national and international athletes.Journal of human kinetics · 2014Article
- Speed trends in male distance running.PloS one · 2014Article
- Changes in sex difference in swimming speed in finalists at FINA World Championships and the Olympic Games from 1992 to 2013.BMC sports science, medicine & rehabilitation · 2014Article
- A comparison of medley and freestyle performance for national and international swimmers between 1994 and 2011.Open access journal of sports medicine · 2013Article
- Environment and scheduling effects on sprint and middle distance running performances.PloS one · 2013Article
- Exponential growth combined with exponential decline explains lifetime performance evolution in individual and human species.Age (Dordrecht, Netherlands) · 2012Article
- Universality, limits and predictability of gold-medal performances at the olympic games.PloS one · 2012Article
- Athlete atypicity on the edge of human achievement: performances stagnate after the last peak, in 1988.PloS one · 2010Article
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
8 authors.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
World records (WR) in sports illustrate the ultimate expression of human integrated muscle biology, through speed or strength performances. Analysis and prediction of man's physiological boundaries in sports and impact of external (historical or environmental) conditions on WR occurrence are subject to scientific controversy. Based on the analysis of 3263 WR established for all quantifiable official contests since the first Olympic Games, we show here that WR progression rate follows a piecewise exponential decaying pattern with very high accuracy (mean adjusted r(2) values = 0.91+/-0.08 (s.d.)). Starting at 75% of their estimated asymptotic values in 1896, WR have now reached 99%, and, present conditions prevailing, half of all WR will not be improved by more than 0,05% in 2027. Our model, which may be used to compare future athletic performances or assess the impact of international antidoping policies, forecasts that human species' physiological frontiers will be reached in one generation. This will have an impact on the future conditions of athlete training and on the organization of competitions. It may also alter the Olympic motto and spirit.
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Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.