Richardson’s slow start put her behind, a position she had been able to overcome in the past. But not on Saturday, as she rarely matched Alfred’s speed during any part of the race.
Women’s 100-meter final results
1 Alfred | 10.72s | 23.15mph | 25.50mph |
2 Richardson | 10.87s | 22.84mph | 25.18mph |
3 Jefferson | 10.92s | 22.64mph | 25.03mph |
4 Neita | 10.96s | 22.63mph | 24.82mph |
5 Terry | 10.97s | 22.56mph | 25.04mph |
6 Kambundji | 10.99s | 22.36mph | 24.38mph |
7 Clayton | 11.04s | 22.23mph | 24.48mph |
8 Ta Lou-Smith | 13.84s | 19.49mph | 23.93mph |
Note: Maximum and average speed calculations exclude the first two seconds of the race.
Alfred ran a near-flawless race: a fast start followed by an unmatched mid-race segment that put her in a commanding position. In the final stretch, she maintained enough speed to cruise to victory.
How fast each medal winner ran compared with the average of all eight runners
0.0s
1.0s
2.0s
3.0s
4.0s
5.0s
6.0s
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9.0s
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–1.0 mph
–0.5 mph
+0.5 mph
+1.0 mph
Richardson
Avg. speed
Methodology
The Times analyzed photographs of the race that were captured every 100 milliseconds. Using a computational technology known as computer vision, the positions of the athletes were detected in each image. Speeds were then computed by combining the positions of the athletes and the timestamp of each photograph. The positions of the athletes were manually verified and results were corroborated with official Olympic data feeds. The speed data displayed as dots on the image show how fast the athletes are relative to each other in each photograph. Marie-Josee Ta Lou-Smith, in lane 3, appeared to have injured her leg during the race and slowed down significantly. Speed data was not calculated for her after about 80 meters.
Source: Elections - nytimes.com
