Run slow to win Races? Game theory explains this Olympic Strategy.
This past Monday, the Huffington Post released an article titled “Four Paralympians Just Ran The 1500m Faster Than Anyone At The Rio Olympics Final” describing the recent results of the Paralympic games men’s T12/T13 1500m final the day before. At first glance, this is shocking news–not one, but four Paraolympic runners ran faster than the man who won the Olympic gold, Matthew Centrowitz Jr. If one follows international Paralympic and Olympic running, one might naturally assume that this could be the result of runners using blades, which have the potential to be faster than human legs and have caused much controversy in the recent years (i.e. Oscar Pistorius). However, this is absolutely no truth to this theory; in fact, T12/T13 is the category for vision impaired runners–no blades allowed. So how did this happen? If these runners were truly faster than the runners in the Olympic finals, why weren’t they in the race? Can you even compare these two races?
As we delve deeper into this conundrum, let’s not detract from the accomplishments of the four runners. Paralympic runners, and athletes in general, are incredibly impressive, and their feats extended far beyond pedantic time comparisons. The key to the story is not that the Paralympic runners ran world class times, but rather that the runners in the Olympic final ran surprising slow times (it was a “tactical” race). Simple game theory can explain this occurrence. Each of the runners in the Olympic final decided that they were trying to win gold (a zero-sum contest against one another). This may be an obvious statement regarding the Olympics, but a necessary one nonetheless, since the underlying strategy would have been different had they been trying to break the world record or even just the best time. The race became a game, with a best strategy to be determined. As a result, the runners ran remarkably slowly as a group for the first three laps, each one not wanting to make a move too soon for fear of running out of steam and getting passed later before the finish. Clearly the dominant strategy was staying close to the front and waiting to make your move. Finally, with only 100 meters left in the race, they all gear up, and the winner was determined by whoever had the most speed left at this point. This race was an anomaly in the track racing world. Many track athletes race solely against the clock, trying merely to get a best time, fundamentally changing the race from a zero-sum game and consequently limiting the amount of in race game theory applied. However, when there is a premium on being the winner of certain race, a highly strategic result can ensue–and the Huffington Post gets their headline.
Source: Four Paralympians Just Ran The 1500m Faster Than Anyone At The Rio Olympics Final