Depends on the Event. distances 800m or less only have 8 runners. Any distance above that has 10-25 competitors.
8 lanes.
No, they can merge as soon as the gun goes off.
8
49
390cm but most running tracks have 8 lanes
The fastest runners get the middle lanes (3,4,5,6), and the slower runners get the inside and outside lanes (1,2,7,8, and sometimes 9). There is sometimes a random draw involved, but that will still involve fast runners in the middle lanes. The seed times determine who goes where in the first round. A seed time is usually the qualifying time for the meet, or the best time so far that year. After the first round of heats, the times from that round are used to determine who goes in which lanes for the next round.
no
You get out of your lane after you reach the designated checkpoint (usually after about a hundred meters) that allows you to do so. In 800 meter races, they usually mark this point with a cone or pole.
10 but they only use the inside 8
The track length is longer for the outer lanes. The starting blocks are staggered so that each runner has an equal distance to the finish line. They have to remain in their respective lanes because of the position where they started, to make it fair to all runners.
The two inner lanes of a race are the best because the distance to run, or driven, are measured between those two lanes. The farther away from the inner lanes you move, the longer the distance becomes due the the longer radii of the turns and the correspondingly longer straightaways. For this reason if you are running in the outermost lane, you will run a much longer distance than any one else. This only holds true for races in which you must run through at least one of the turns on the track.
How do they not? They have alot like using math to make sure the lanes in the pools are the exact same