A Closer Look at a 400 m Athletics Track

Transcript

A Closer Look at a 400 m Athletics Track A standard track isn't a perfect circle; it's made of two straight sections and two semicircles (which combine to make one full circle). Let’s label it now In a 400 m athletics track, we have Two straight sections of length 84.39 m each, Two curved portions, which are semicircles with a common centre (points A and B); the innermost semicircle on each side has radius 36.5 m. The width of each lane is 1.22 m Let’s label our figure Now, we have a question Let an athlete make one complete circuit of the track. What is the total distance she runs? Let us assume that she runs in the first track, at a distance of 0.3 m from the inner border. Now, Straight Section She runs two straight sections of length 84.39 m each ∴ Total straight section = 2 × 84.39 = 168.78 m Semicircular Section She also runs two semicircles, whose radius would be Radius = 36.5 + 0.3 = 36.8 m Now, Distance run in 1 semicircle = Perimeter of semicircle = 1/2 × Perimeter of 1 circle = 𝟏/𝟐 × 2𝝅r = 𝜋r = 3.1416 × 36.8 = 115.61 m Since she runs 2 semicircles Distance run in 2 semicircles = 2 × 115.61 m = 231.22 m Total Distance Total distance = Straight distance + Semicircular distance = 168.78 + 231.22 = 400 m Now, let’s check why stagger is important