The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill Events Calendar
Sign Up

The Marathon world record of Ruth Chepngetich: Was it legitimate, and how can data and analytics help us decide?

Wednesday, February 5, 2025 5pm to 6pm

231 E. Cameron Avenue, Chapel Hill, NC

#sportsanalytics
View map

Last October, the Kenyan runner Ruth Chepngetich ran a women's marathon world record of 2 hours, 9 minutes, 56 seconds, breaking the previous world record by nearly two minutes, achieving a time that was considered impossible for women just a few years ago. But, does such a remarkable time constitute evidence of illegal drug use? In this study, Dr. Richard Smith shows how extreme value theory, a branch of statistics previously used to study phenomena as diverse as extreme weather events and crashes in the stock market, can be used to study questions of this nature in sports.

 

Dr. Richard Smith, a Mark L. Reed III Distinguished Professor of statistics at UNC, has conducted significant research in environmental statistics and associated areas of methodological research such as spatial statistics, time series analysis and extreme value theory. Since Richard is an avid marathon runner, he has utilized mathematics and statistics in research projects involving marathon data. Previous studies by Richard and his collaborators include a projection of finish times for marathon runners who were unable to finish their race in the tragic Boston Marathon of 2013.

 

This event is sponsored by the Sports Analytics Intelligence Laboratory at UNC-Chapel Hill.

 

Students Can Attend for a CLE Credit!!!!

 

Event Details