FORECASTING BIOLOGICAL LIMITS OF ATHLETES IN SPORTS

Forecasting of human performance in sports is very important as well as a difficult task from many angles. It helps in targeting still higher goals and encourages the sports persons to challenge the limits. A general perception that men perform better than women in athletics, is being examined by analyzing time series data for two athletic events, namely swimming and race. Data pertaining to world records for these events have been collected from various sources and are being analyzed with the help of two well-known mathematical models viz. Logistic model and Gompertz model. It was noticed that these models do not capture the actual empirical trends. Attempts have been made to modify the logistic model and the modified model has been empirically tested. This modified model showed higher explanatory power for all the data sets in this study and it may provide a dependable framework in demand forecasting and innovation diffusion analyses. Men's performance has almost reached the saturation level whereas women are fast improving their records.