Breaking Barriers: What is the Probability of Achieving Mile World Records in the Near Future?

BACKGROUND

Whether current elite milers possess the physiological profiles required to break the men's and women's mile world records (WRs) remains unclear.

OBJECTIVE

The aim was to estimate the probability of mile WR performances in elite men and women using a bivariate Monte Carlo simulation grounded in the critical speed (CS)/curvature constant (D') bioenergetic framework.

METHODS

CS and D' were estimated via linear regression (D = D' + CS · T) from personal best times across up to seven distances (800 m-5000 m) for the top-10 men's and women's milers of the 2021-2024 Olympic cycle. Subsequently, a bivariate Monte Carlo simulation (n = 100,000; seed = 42) was conducted, sampling CS and D' from a truncated bivariate normal distribution incorporating the correlation.

RESULTS

The simulation yielded a probability of 0.06% for women surpassing the current 4:07.64 WR, with 0% probability of bettering the sub-4:00 barrier. For men, the probability of breaking the 3:43.13 WR was 0.88%, with 0.01% probability of a sub-3:40 performance. Median predicted times were 4:16.33 for women and 3:48.11 for men. CS was the dominant sensitivity predictor in both sexes (ρ = - 0.74; ρ = - 0.48, for women and men, respectively).

CONCLUSIONS

The reported probabilities derived from an elite sample (ten women, ten men) showed that under current physiological profiles, mile WRs are very unlikely events. Achieving these performances requires the convergence of extraordinary physiological capability and extrinsic factors including advanced footwear technology, aerodynamic assistance, and optimised pacing strategies.