As I wrote in the initial post of this series, the procedure is to sort
Mirko Jalava's 2008 World Deep Lists <tilastopaja.org> for each event
by age of birth, starting with 1973 and backward from there, to
identify all athletes on the list of masters age levels (35 and older
on the date of competition). In summarizing the lists, I've bold-faced
the data for the oldest on the list, and also have noted the youngest
athlete on the world list in each event.
Masters on Men’s 400m World List for 2008
N=2392
List threshold=49.00
402 46.92A Anderson dos Santos BRA 23 Apr 72 Cochabamba 31 May
723 47.45 Dedrick Evans USA 4 Feb 73 Atlanta GA 17 May
734 47.46 Aleksey Aksyonov RUS 5 Jun 72 Chelyabinsk 28 Jun
1241 48.07 Jata Shankar IND 20 Jun 72 Bhopal 29 Feb
1581 48.38 Flávio Godoy BRA 13 Dec 69 Rio de Janeiro 7 Jun
1700 48.48 Marc Foucan FRA 14 Oct 71 Montpellier 18 May
2062 48.76 Johnny Thomas USA 3 Aug 63 Austin TX 9 May
1861 48.62A Kevin Hawkins USA 18 Mar 65 Laramie WY 3 May
1903 48.65 Jimmy Jean-Joseph FRA 15 Oct 72 Aix-les-Bains 4 May
2282 48.93 Sean Adams USA 24 May 71 Walnut CA 8 Mar
2326 48.96 Ruslan Mashchenko RUS 11 Nov 71 Sochi 27 May
Youngest athlete (15) on this list:
1388 48.21 Curtis Woods IRL 93 Mannheim 22 Jun
The 400m list showed 17 athletes with 1992 birthdates (age 16 at some
time in 2008)
-----
Masters on Women’s 400m World List for 2008
N=1069
List threshold=55.75
215 53.11 Donna Fraser GBR 7 Nov 72 Birmingham 12 Jul
695 55.00 Natalya Tsyganova RUS 7 Feb 71 Moskva 4 Jun
771 55.18 Jearl Miles-Clark USA 4 Sep 66 Gainesville FL 4 Apr
814 55.25 Patrizia Spuri ITA 18 Feb 73 Tivoli 13 Jul
892 55.43 Lena Aruhn SWE 22 Apr 70 Celle Ligure 24 Jun
921 55.50 Anja Rücker GER 20 Dec 72 Nürnberg 5 Jul
Youngest athlete (13) on this list:
965 55.57 Tiffany Terry USA 95 Omaha NE 27 Jul
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And now, the mystery. When I first did the sorting on the women's 400m
list, I accidentally did it on Mirko's 2004 list, not his current one.
No mystery in my having the wrong one: I'd just finished filtering and
corking sixty bottles of two kinds of wine, and of course they have to
be tasted from time to time to make sure everything's going well. No,
the mystery lies in how very different is the master's-age
representation in the two lists. Here's the data for the 2004 list:
Masters on Women’s 400m World List for 2004
N=685
List threshold=54.99
39 51.08 Donna Fraser GBR 7 Nov 72 Berlin 12 Sep
52 51.46 Jearl Miles-Clark USA 4 Sep 66 Carson CA 22 May
60 51.61 Sandie Richards JAM 6 Nov 68 Kingston 27 Jun
73 51.78 Svetlana Bodritskaya KAZ 7 Nov 71 Almaty 5 Jun
113 52.29 Olha Mishchenko UKR 24 Nov 71 Yalta 4 Jul
118 52.32 Yuliya Sotnikova RUS 18 Nov 70 Tula 29 Jul
119 52.33 Debbie Parris-Thymes JAM 24 Mar 73 Baton Rouge LA 17 Apr
125 52.44 Adri Schoeman RSA 13 Jul 70 Durban 17 Apr
131 52.51A Andri Sialou CYP 27 Jan 73 Pretoria 31 Jan
147 52.71 Julia Alba ESP 30 May 72 Huelva 6 Aug
172 52.92 Irina Anashkina RUS 31 Jan 72 Moskva 18 May
189 53.02 Lena Aruhn SWE 22 Apr 70 Karlstad 7 Aug
193 53.05A Maria Magnólia Figueirêdo BRA 11 Nov 63 Bogotá 10 Jul
197 53.08 Patrizia Spuri ITA 18 Feb 73 Roma 26 Jun
201 53.12 Luciana Mendes BRA 26 Jul 71 São Paulo 3 Jun
255 53.51 Anke Feller GER 26 Sep 71 Ratingen 26 Jun
282 53.62 Marie-Louise Bévis FRA 12 Oct 72 Saint-Denis 23 Jul
307 53.73A Liliana Allen MEX 24 May 70 Monterrey 3 Jul
326 53.81 Letitia Vriesde SUR 5 Oct 64 Utrecht 10 Jul
401 54.08 Anita Mormand FRA 20 Feb 71 Sotteville-lès-Rouen 18 Jul
425 54.18 Mirtha Brock COL 9 Apr 70 Lynchburg VA 8 May
433 54.22 Natalya Tsyganova RUS 7 Feb 71 Tula 23 Jun
436 54.22 Natalya Sharova RUS 4 Oct 72 Tula 29 Jul
449 54.29 NR Tanya Blake MLT 16 Jan 71 Eagle Rock CA 8 May
463 54.36 Danielle Perpoli ITA 7 Mar 68 Rieti 12 Jun
466 54.37 Elisabeth Grousselle FRA 6 Feb 73 Mont-de-Marsan 6 Jun
547 54.62 Linetta Wilson USA 11 Oct 67 Fullerton CA 13 Mar
580 54.71 Tatyana Movchan UKR 19 Sep 70 Mykolaiv 9 Jun
Youngest athlete (13) on this list:
965 55.57 Tiffany Terry USA 95 Omaha NE 27 Jul
Notice: 28 masters on the 2004 women's 400m list; 6 masters on the 2008
list. Why? What happened in those four years to so drastically reduce
the number of masters on the women's lists? An obvious possibility
would be differences in list length, but the 2008 list was actually
longer than the 2004 list. Another possibility would be differences in
the threshold for inclusion. But again, the 2004 threshold (54.99) was
more difficult to attain than the 2008 one (55.75). Both were Olympic
years, so the added enthusiasm that event evokes would be the same for
both.
Any other explanations?
