Specifically in track & field and swimming. Is it observation bias? Heightened adrenaline? Level of competition?
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A lot of times top top guys won’t go all out during the prelims they will jsut do well enough to advance. They want to save thier energy for the level where they can’t hold back. Also you tend to do better in head to head events if the person right next to you is going faster. It pushes you harder.
it also depends on the rules. some governing bodies don’t count records broken during prelims and only count it during actual competition. and in general people have to tendency to perform better when there is fierce competition.
To win a race you have to be faster than your competitors. In the preliminaries the competition isn’t as strong as in the finals. So you can do a slower time and still win. Pushing yourself to do an unnecessary good time risks injury.
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