100 Metre Betting

›

The 100 Metres or as sometimes referred to as the 100 Metre dash is the pinnacle event in athletics and is also the shortest distance run by both men and women at the Olympics. The men’s event was introduced into the Olympics in 1896 where American Thomas Burke won the event in a time of 12 seconds (Women’s 100 Metre wasn’t introduced until 1928). Since then athletes from all over the globe have been competing to gain the title as the fastest man or women on the planet. In previous years the men’s 100 Metres has been dominated by American athletes with 16 of the Olympic finals between 1896 and 2008 being won by an American. When it comes to 100 Metre betting there are a number of opportunities for you to get involved and these include, the classification stage, the 1st round, the semi-finals and the final.

If you are looking at betting on the winning time then there are a number of factors which could aid an athlete’s run which include climatic conditions and altitude. Air resistance is an important factor that you need to take note of as a strong head wind will slow an athlete down whereas a tail win can improve his or hers performance. Due to this the IAAF brought in a ruling that an athlete can only have a maximum tail wind of 2.0 m/s for their timing to count towards world records. This will also affect the 100 Metre betting market - will the world record be broken.

Men’s 100 Metres

Men’s 100 Metres Olympic Winners

  • 2008 Beijing – Usain Bolt
  • 2004 Athens – Justin Gatlin
  • 2000 Sydney – Maurice Greene
  • 1996 Atlanta – Donovan Bailey
  • 1992 Barcelona – Linford Christie
  • 1988 Seoul – Carl Lewis
  • 1984 Los Angeles – Carl Lewis

The Men’s 100 Metres in the biggest crowd puller of all the athletics events and it was rumoured that there where over million ticket applications for the Men’s 100m Final at London Summer Olympics. Historically the 10-second barrier has been the ball mark for the elite athletes with Jim Hines becoming the first man to break the 10 second barrier at the 1968 Olympics. More recently the benchmark has been lowered with a number of athletes recording sub 10 seconds including Jamaica’s Usain Bolt, who set the a world record timing of 9.58 seconds at the 2009 World Championships in Berlin.

The men’s 100 Metre is so highly thought of that some athletes have brought this race into the spotlight by using banned drugs. In the 1988 Seoul Olympics Canadian Ben Johnson set the world alight by running a new world record of 9.79 seconds. However, after the race Johnson was tested positive for performance enhancing drugs so was therefore stripped of his title. This meant that American sprinter Carl Lewis was handed the gold medal to become the first man ever to win back-to-back Olympic 100 Metre titles.

Women’s 100 Metres

Women’s 100 Metres Olympic Winners

  • 2008 Beijing – Shelly-Ann Fraser
  • 2004 Athens – Yulia Nestsiarenka
  • 2000 Sydney – Not awarded (Marion Jones stripped of her medal)
  • 1996 Atlanta – Gail Devers
  • 1992 Barcelona – Gail Devers
  • 1988 Seoul – Florence Griffith-Joyner
  • 1984 Los Angeles – Evelyn Ashford
  • 1980 Moscow – Lyudmila Kondratyeva

It’s not surprising that the women’s benchmark is a lot lower than the men’s with a time of eleven seconds or less seen as fast time.

American Florence Griffith-Joyner set the world alight recording a time of 10.49 seconds at the US Olympic trails in 1988.


100 Metre Rules

Over the years there has been a number of rule changes to the 100 Metres so we’ve laid them out below.

The International Association of Athletics Federations or IAAF has set the following rules for 100 Metre sprint for men:

  • The width and length of the lanes and tracks should not violate the instruction of IAAF.
  • Any sprinter who obstructs or gets in the way of another sprinter will be disqualified.
  • Any runner with a false start will be disqualified. A reaction time less than 0.1 s is considered a false start.
  • Athletes are only allowed to participate if they are running in spiked shoes.
  • The heats, quarter-finals and semi-finals must be arranged by the appointed technical delegates.
  • The time shall be recorded to 1/100th of a second.
  • An athlete who fails to finish the race is not awarded any credit.
  • All times must be recorded by a permitted automatic timing device.
  • Any athlete who runs inside the inner curve of the track will be disqualified.

There has also been a ruling brought in from 2010 World Championships where the top athletes only have to compete over three rounds instead of four meaning all 100 Metre sprinter who are in possession of an A or B qualification mark will run one less round. Athletes who haven’t reached the qualifying criteria will have to run in a classification round to qualify for the 1st round (rule broken down - Top 72 ranked athletes will get a “bye” from the “Preliminary Round” or “Classification Round”, and the other 20-30 athletes will fight (and qualify) for the final 8 spots in about 5 or 6 heats).

The above rule has come under a lot of criticism due to the fact that you will no longer see the minnow pitching themselves against the world best.