You may only be a split-second out with your bets, but Athletics fan
Tony Ansell has been the first out of the blocks for years
Athletics is my favourite sport both for watching and for betting profits. Looking back over the last 38 years my best results have been in sprint events where my lifetime profit on stakes on major championships is over 100%.
In the 1960s the 100-yard sprint was only hand-timed to a tenth of a second, whereas today even the 10,000m events are electronically timed and the results declared to a 100th of a second – a degree of accuracy some 1,000 times greater.
This can lead to an obsession with times and in the men’s 100m most people just look at these to assess the athlete’s chances, but here is the way that I approach this event.
1 Athlete’s times for the season
My starting point is where most people finish.
2 Wind-speed adjustment
Times are legal if the wind speed is less than +2.0m per second. Opinions vary as to the degree of adjustment that should be made, but the consensus is that for each metre of following wind, you should add 0.065 seconds, with an opposite adjustment for a headwind. This takes no account of a swirling wind or a crosswind, or the different wind speeds in different lanes!
3 Reaction-time adjustment
When I watch events on TV I make a note of each athlete’s reaction times as it’s quite difficult to find these recorded anywhere afterwards for reference. A reaction time of less than 0.1 seconds is deemed a false start and 0.2 seconds is very slow.
Reaction times tend to cluster around 0.15 seconds. But, when the finish of a race is very close and there is a large variance in the reaction times of the first three home, I often find it useful to deduct this figure from the total time to get the athletes’ ‘running time’. This quickly lets me see who I think is most likely to come out on top next time they meet.
4 Head-to-heads
Over the season I keep a matrix of all the head-to-head results of the major contenders. When athletes are racing against each other there are fewer variables to consider and some athletes seem to dominate opponents of a roughly equal standard. Others underperform when up against athletes they fear. The more often an athlete beats an opponent in minor races, the more likely that is to be confirmed in championships when confidence is at a premium.
5 Altitude
Thin air makes a big difference in athletics and a 10,000m race in Nairobi will be run a full minute slower than a similar race at sea level. Sprinters, however, benefit from altitude, although the effect is less dramatic. Italy’s Pietro Mennea won a 200m race in Mexico on 12 September 1979 in a world-record time of 19.72 seconds (1.8m/sec following wind), but he never broke 20 seconds again!
6 Body language
Every athlete is nervous before a race. In fact, unless you are nervous, you will not perform at your best. However, nerves have to be controlled and a degree of relaxation is necessary, even in explosive sprint races. Tension shows in the face and neck. Poor Merlene Ottey – a supremely talented sprinter – just could not handle it in major championships. She looked scared, veins stood out in her neck, and all that tension took its toll with defeat after defeat in major finals.
Drug-fuelled sprinters on the other hand look absolutely awesome. I backed Ben Johnson (4/1) at the Olympics in 1988 as I couldn’t believe how great he looked in the heats. In the World Championships of 1991, Katrin Krabbe beat Ottey. She ran the silkiest women’s 100m semi-final I had ever seen, and her adjusted time (calculated as described above) was easily the faster. I knew I had a chance of getting odds against as Ottey had been a 1/6 favourite before her semi and I decided to take any price of 5/4 and above. I phoned a Swedish bookmaker and said to him: ‘Who do you fancy for the women’s 100 final?’ He replied: ‘Don’t play games with me Tony – I fancy the same one you do.’
‘Okay, then how do you bet?’ I asked. ‘5/6 Ottey, 5/6 the winner,’ he said. William Hill then came out with 1/6 Ottey and 7/2 on Krabbe. I hit three shops, got a decent bet on at 7/2 and then even more at 11/4.
7 Betting
Using the above factors I will price the event to a 100% book a couple of days before the start. I will then examine worldwide bookmaker prices and place a bet where I find value.
When the event starts and I can be sure of the form, I will place larger bets in-running between the rounds. Price variance will be greater at this stage as bookies have less chance to check out other firms’ prices, so for a very short while some great bets are usually available.
I’ll give all the New Year quiz answers next month, but suffice it to say that nobody has yet solved the fiendishly lateral number seven.
