Athletes who can move faster than their opponents have an advantage. For
example, a faster athlete may be able to get to a ball more quickly than a
competitor or may even outrun a pursuer. For this reason, athletes in most
sports value speed highly. Speed is often measured by using linear (straightline) sprinting over a distance between 40 and 100 yards (37–91 m). However,
it is important to remember that in most sports, athletes rarely sprint more
than 30 yards (27 m) in a straight line before they must make some type of
directional change. Unless an athlete is a 100-meter sprinter, focusing a great
deal of time and attention on straight-ahead speed may not result in optimum
performance. On the other hand, since most sports require acceleration from
a static state or when transitioning between movements, straight-line speed
is still a valuable asset that athletes should focus on when testing and training for sports.