IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/hhs/oruesi/2023_004.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

A Stochastic Analysis of the 4 x 100 m Relay

Author

Listed:

Abstract

The baton exchanges are undoubtedly the most critical parts of the 4 × 100 meter relay race. Timing of the outgoing runner is critical. In this paper we analyze the race as a minimization problem under uncertainty. We formulate a stochastic model in which an outgoing runner at the baton exchange cannot perfectly assess the incoming runner’s exact location relatively a check mark position, and therefore potentially misjudges the right moment to start running. Also, the team members’ daily shape is subject to uncertainty. To understand the effect of these two random variables - incoming runners’ distance to checkmark and the daily shape of the running team – we conduct a simulation study to investigate the trade-off between the team’s expected race time and their probability of being disqualified due to overrunning the takeover zone. Conditioning on a low disqualification probability, the difference in expected race time is shown to be substantial between teams with different variation in distance assessment and forecasting running performance, respectively.

Suggested Citation

  • Karlsson, Niklas & Lunander, Anders, 2023. "A Stochastic Analysis of the 4 x 100 m Relay," Working Papers 2023:4, Örebro University, School of Business.
    • Handle: RePEc:hhs:oruesi:2023_004
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    To our knowledge, this item is not available for download. To find whether it is available, there are three options:
    1. Check below whether another version of this item is available online.
    2. Check on the provider's web page whether it is in fact available.
    3. Perform a search for a similarly titled item that would be available.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    athletics; sprinting; relay race;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • C63 - Mathematical and Quantitative Methods - - Mathematical Methods; Programming Models; Mathematical and Simulation Modeling - - - Computational Techniques
    • Z20 - Other Special Topics - - Sports Economics - - - General

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:hhs:oruesi:2023_004. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: the person in charge (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/ieoruse.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.