The Olympic Motto Citius, Altius, Fortius Does Not Mean That Records Have Been Broken, but Rather How Records Continue To Be Broken

It is understandable that a person might conclude that the Olympic Motto, Citius, Altius, Fortius, means that records have been broken, indicating athletes are running faster, jumping higher and demonstrating greater feats of strength. Actually, such feats are the cumulative effect of the real meaning of that motto. On March 7, 1891, at an Arcueil College sports assembly in France, Father Henri Didon, a Dominican Priest, told the students that their goal in sport should be to take the skills each had and do their best to improve, that is, to run a bit faster, to jump a bit higher and to become a bit stronger than they had been before. He didn`t say anything about competing on a team, beating anyone or setting a record. When a young person gets interested in physical activity, they choose the methods of that day and age, not thinking about the past or wondering if anyone in the future will do better. While the young athletes are doing their best, others are working to improve nutrition, training, equipment, coaching and technique. Those improvements elevate what the athlete can achieve. The best of those athletes will be on sports teams. The best of them will be on Olympic teams. The best of them will win medals. The best of them will set records. Winning performances keep getting better, simply due the self-improvement across the spectrum of competition. For example, in 1924, American Olympic swimming champion Johnny Weissmuller broke the one-minute barrier at 100m and Australian Olympic swimming champion Andrew Charlton took two minutes off the world record at 1500m. Were those remarkable records out-of-reach for the next few Olympic winners? No! As we examine the velocity of Olympic champions for those two events from 1908 to the present, we see that winning performances just kept improving right through 1924. In fact, since 2004, the velocity of Olympic 1500m champions have been faster than Weissmuller swam in just a single 100m, a feat that would have been deemed physically impossible in 1924, yet happened as athletes just kept trying to better themselves, not thinking of such records. A similar plotting of the accumulated improvements for Olympic champions, both for men and women, in throwing, swimming, jumping and running occasionally exhibits the effects imposed on athletes by international events, yet shows steady improvements from one Olympics to the next, as generations of young athletes entered sport and observed Father Didon`s mantra.