One could claim that the 200m sprint is just the bigger brother of the 100m sprint as it’s just double the distance. But looking closer at the whole course of the run, it gets clear that both differ in their challenges concerning speed, strategy and technique. That’s namely because of the curved start that the race contains which brings the athletes to adjust their technique to the bend of the curve. So how can an athlete accelerate to his maximum Speed and holt that as long as possible while having to sprint in a curve for 100 meters and after that run another 100 meters in a straight line?
https://pixabay.com/photos/people-men-run-race-sports-sprint-2563683
What makes the 200’s so different?
First of all, the rules in general apply the same to the 200 meter sprint as to the 100 meter sprint. The key difference as already stated is the doubled length and the curved track in the beginning of the race. This means that athletes have to begin the race with care in order to stay in their lane when they run in the curved section. Besides that, the 200 meters have generally the same race phases as the 100 meters but due to the longevity and structure of the race the phases are entered at different points of the race. Due to a greater demand being placed on the body’s energy resources, the athlete accumulates more lactate which means that the 200 meters can’t be run at maximum speed. Furthermore, speed and speed endurance play a higher role then the starting and acceleration phase compared to the 100 meters. The curve leads to the athlete not being able to run the first 100 meters as fast as the second 100 meters and a better technique can make up a lot of time in that section. The second 200 meters also show a bigger decrease in speed while the goal of the sprinter is to ignore the pain and strain being put onto his body which also distinguishes better sprinters from the rest.
Record Development
The 200-Meter Dash has been included into the Olympic events sins 1900 for men and 1948 for women. It’s common that most athletes don’t specialize themselves on the 200 meter run and that mostly 100 meter-runners wish to claim both titles. The first World Record was ratified in May 1951 and set by US athlete Andy Stanfield which had a time of 20,6 seconds. For almost the next 60 years the record has been broken for a lot of times until 20th August 2009 in Berlin, Usain Bolt had an unbelievable record time of 19.19 seconds which still hasn‘t been beaten. The women‘s world record in 200m holds Florence Griffith-Joyner with 21.34 seconds on 29th September 1988. The current dominating athlete is Noah Lyles with a time of 19.31 seconds in 2022 in Oregon. In the sprint disciplines the US and Jamaica are definetly dominating as you can see.
Training Opportunities
The training tips here are very similar to the ones given for 100 meters. You can do short sprints (10-30 meters) to focus on explosive starts. On top of that you can do split 300m/350m runs where you go all out for the first 200 meters, jog for 50 meters and then sprint again in order to build endurance for the second half of the race. Furthermore, you can do Flying Sprints of 20m-40m where you gradually build speed, then sprint all out to train your top speed. You can also include weight training, Plyometrics and Core Work. Another important aspect is the technique where you should approach specialists in order to not pick up false movement habits.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/200_metres
200 Metres (worldathletics.org)
200m: the sport | Greatest Sporting Nation
