Russians are the fastest 100-km ultra-marathoners in the world A recent study on the top ten over 100 km to nationality showed that Japanese runners were the fastest. This selection of top athletes can lead to selection distortion, and the goal of this current study was to examine where the fastest 100 km runners come from, by taking into account all finishers since 1959 in 100 km runs. We analyzed data of 150'710 athletes, who completed a 100 km run between the years 1959 and 2016. To get precise estimates and plots, we only chose the nationalities with 900 and more placements that led to 24 nationalities.Histograms and density plots were performed to investigate the distribution of the race period. A linear regression analysis by gender, age and year was performed to investigate the competition time between nationalities.Histograms, density and scattering diagrams showed that some nationalities had a time limit of 14 hours. From the complete record, the runs were removed with more than 14 hours (cut record) and the same descriptive diagrams and analyzes as for the complete record were performed again. In addition to linear regression, a shortened regression with the cut record was performed to enable a conclusion for the entire sample. In order to examine a possible difference between races at home and race abroad, an interaction racetrack was included in consultation with nationality in the model. Most finishes were achieved by runners from Japan, Germany, Switzerland, France, Italy and the USA with more than 260,000 (85%) finishes. Runners from Russia and Hungary were the fastest and runners from Hong Kong and China were the slowest.
Unlike the existing findings on top 10 nationality, this analysis showed that runners from Russia, not from Japan, the fastest 100 km runners worldwide, if you have considered all races since 1959. The whole work can be found under https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0199701