Observations on Olympic athletes

The results of the experiments of Furusawa, Hill and Parkinson (1) at Cornell indicated that observations, by electrical timing methods, on the world's fastest sprinters, might be of considerable physiological interest. One of us (C. H. B.) had hoped to collaborate with Hill in studies of this kind at the Amsterdam Olympic Games, but it was found impossible to make the necessary arrangements. At these games the 100-metre and the 200-metre events were won by P. Williams, who since has several times equalled the world's record for the indoor 60-yards race. the women's 400-metre relay event was won by the Canadian team, and a new world's record for the distance was established. The fastest member of this team now claims the world's record for 100 metres; her times for the 50- and 60-yard indoor races are the fastest that have been officially recorded. It has been possible recently to conduct electrical timing experiments, using these Canadian athletes as subjects. The results of these observations and a discussion of them form the first part of this paper. In the second part the results of a short study of the blood sugar content of "Marathon" runners at the end of the race are given. The change in the sugar content in the blood of athletes, attributable to muscular exercise, has received considerable attention. No attempt to review the subject completely will be made here. The blood sugar content is often appreciably raised by short sprints, but this is not always the case. Several reports on the low blood sugar values found in runners at the end of long distance races have appeared. In 1924 Levine, Gordon and Derick (2) determined the blood sugar content of 11 long distance runners. The blood samples were obtained from a vein and were secured in from 2 to 30 minutes after the finish of the race. In four of these runners a blood sugar of 0·050 per cent. or less was found, and in two others the value was 0·065 per cent. In three of the others the amount was within normal limits. The remaining two had higher values, presumably due to the food they consumed before the blood sample was secured.