55 m.p.h.
In this track and field throwing event, speed is generated mostly through body rotation. Because of the winglike shape of the discus, which weighs about 4-1/2 lbs. in the men’s event, the object is to take advantage of the Bernoulli principle, which provides lift much in the manner of an airplane wing. Thus a headwind is advantageous, and if the discus is released at the ideal angle so that it takes a 38.4–degree flight path, it will fly at 55 m.p.h. Perhaps because everything must be just right to achieve this, the discus remains the only track and field event in which a new world record has never been set at the Olympics.
The farthest throw in Olympic competition came in the 2004 Athens Games, when Lithuania’s Alekna Virgilijus got off a 229 ft. 3 in. throw.
(In the hammer throw, which has been called track and field’s most esoteric event, it’s conceivable that the flight speeds could be similar to the discus, but true to the event’s mysterious nature, information about the flight speed of the hammer is hard to come. Suffice it to say, that the competitors spin around several times before releasing the 16 lb. ball-and-wire contraption (the women’s hammer weighs about 9 lbs.)
