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closeReferee comments: Referee 2
Posted by PLOS_ONE_Group on 08 Feb 2008 at 22:22 GMT
Referee 2's review:
The authors of this manuscript have tried to explain, with epidemiological tools, that the number of world records will decrease over time. As in most evolutionary processes the developmeent of world records will not be linear, but exponential. Although I have merit in the analysis done by the athletes, the used methods are described in an un-understandable manner. The organisation of the paper (first results/discussion and than the methods section) is not helpful in this.
My major critisism is the lack of a clear purpose and a direction what to do with the knowledge of this study.
It is not clear what the authors meant with 'ultra-physiology'. I would like to encourage the authors to apply their method not on world records but on average top-6 results of every year. With world records, only a downward tendency can be detected while the development of performance could go up as well (e.g. due to doping regulation). Seiler et al (MSSE 2007) gave an example of this analysis.
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N.B. These are the comments made by the referee when reviewing an earlier version of this paper. Prior to publication the manuscript has been revised in light of these comments and to address other editorial requirements.