Elitetrack: Sport Training & Conditioning

I’m going to preface this comment by saying I haven’t read through any of the posts here other than to see there’s a heated debate going on. I think I’ve made my opinion pretty clear on this point before and it’s always difficult to argue this point over the net because so much that is said is just assumptions on both sides. I am going to write what I hope will be a thought provoking blog on the use of drugs in our sport and hopefully we can divert some of this discussion there and leave this thread to talking about the WR.

Top 50 in each event versus the NBA about the same…........ gimme a freakin break. Really have no idea what they’re talking about.

Swimming riddled big time with drugs—on the same level as track? Are you KIDDING ME????

Do you have any clue how prevalent drugs are in TRACK?

From the “drug” era—1984 Olympic FINAL
1. Carl LEWIS           (USA)  9.99
2. Sam GRADDY           (USA)  10.19
3. Ben JOHNSON           (CAN)  10.22
4. Ron BROWN           (USA)  10.26
5. Mike McFARLANE         (GBR)  10.27
6. Ray STEWART           (JAM)  10.29
7. Donovan REID         (GBR)  10.33
8. Tony SHARPE           (CAN)  10.35

From the Mideast Region Qualifier for NCAA nationals
Finals
  1 Richard Thompson       SR LSU               9.97   1.9
  2 Trindon Holliday       SO LSU               10.07   1.9
  3 J-Mee Samuels         JR Arkansas           10.08   1.9 [10.075]
  4 Evander Wells         SO Tennessee           10.08   1.9 [10.080]
  5 Rubin Williams         SR Tennessee           10.12   1.9
  6 Gordon McKenzie       JR Kentucky           10.23   1.9
  7 Kendall May           SO Miss State           10.24   1.9
  8 Rickie Bratton         SR Ole Miss           10.47   1.9

So the silver medalist from the ‘drug era’ would have gotten 6th and wouldn’t have qualified to the national meet.

Let’s keep telling ourselves track is one of the cleaner sports though.

Women’s 1984 Olympic Final
1. Evelyn ASHFORD         (USA)  10.97
2. Alice BROWN           (USA)  11.13
3. Merlene OTTEY-PAGE     (JAM)  11.16
4. Jeanette BOLDON       (USA)  11.25
5. Grace JACKSON         (JAM)  11.39
6. Angela BAILEY         (CAN)  11.40
7. Heather OAKES         (GBR)  11.43
8. Angela TAYLOR         (CAN)  11.62

Big 12 Championships (not even nationals…)
Finals
  1 Simone Facey         SR Texas A&M;10.95M 1.8
  2 Alexandria Anderson     JR Texas             11.11S 1.8
  3 Porscha Lucas         SO Texas A&M;11.15S 1.8
  4 Scottesha Miller         Oklahoma           11.21S 1.8
  5 Allison George         JR Texas A&M;11.34S 1.8
  6 Nickesha Anderson       JR Kansas             11.35S 1.8
  7 Khrystal Carter       SO Texas A&M;11.42S 1.8
  8 Elizabeth Adeoti       SO Texas A&M;11.46R 1.8

1980 and 1984 might have been the cleanest Olympic games since 1968.  Not to mention lets even begin to discuss the technological advances in track surfaces over 20 years or that Boulder is at altitude which is where the Big 12 championships occurred and the Mideast Region is run at Arkansas which outside of Eugene probably has the best facilities in the United States.  Last but not least is 1.9m/s and 1.8m/s wind in those comparisons why not adjust all those times.

Ben Jonhson was 10.1Xs before steriods and 9.79s after them and he couldn’t hold 10.1Xs for 100m after all the rounds of a championship meet.  The steriod era had a lull, because testing became prevalent, but when they figured out how to beat the tests it started back up again.

You further prove that you have no idea what you’re talking about. Ben Johnson had already been using drugs for years in 1984. How 1984 was one of the cleanest Olympics, I have no idea since there was no random testing at the time. Maybe you could fill us in on how it was any cleaner than the Olympics before it.

And I’m sorry, but any benefit the altitude has (or the facilities in Arkansas) is surely outweighed by the fact that it is:

1. Not the peak of their season… and in fact in the middle of a very dense collegiate season
2. Not the same hype as the Olympics
3. Not supposed to be the BEST ATHLETES IN THE WORLD—just one conference or one region of the NCAA

Just so we can see DBAndre’s ignorance on this issue again:

2000 Olympics… supposed to be one of the dirtiest and more than half have been implicated in drug use
Men’s 100m FINAL
1. Maurice Greene         (USA)  9.87
2. Ato Boldon           (TRI)  9.99
3. Obadele Thompson       (BAR)  10.04
4. Dwain Chambers         (GBR)  10.08
5. Jonathan Drummond       (USA)  10.09
6. Darren Campbell         (GBR)  10.13
7. Kim Collins           (StK)  10.17
  Aziz Zakari           (GHA)  DNF

SEC Championship
100m Finals
  1 235 Thompson, Richard   SR LSU               9.93S -0.1 10  
  2 204 Holliday, Trindon   JR LSU               10.05S -0.1   8  
  3 330 Hall, Jeremy       SO Florida             10.17F -0.1   6  
  4 54 Williams, Rubin     SR Tennessee           10.19F -0.1   5  
  5 149 Samules, J-Mee     JR Arkansas           10.21F -0.1   4  
  6 86 Wells, Evander       SO Tennessee           10.25F -0.1   3  
  7 346 Wilks, Terrell     FR Florida             10.26R -0.1   2  
  8 451 May, Kendall       SO Miss. St.          10.37R -0.1   1  
  9 60 Pritchett, Matthieu   SR Tennessee           10.40R -0.1
That Olympic final is supposed to include some of the GREATEST SPRINTERS OF ALL TIME… Again, the NCAA guys are not even at the peak of their season and they’ve had to go through so many meets, week to week, to get to this point. Still, not even the same stimulus as the Olympics… Most of these guys are under 21… I mean hell we don’t need to continue this.

And implying that track advances are even close to drug use in terms of assistance is asinine. Asafa ran 9.77 in Gateshead and slowed down…

For usain to run so fast this early says only one thing to me. He’s coached very badly or either he’s on something.  Before anybody disputes this lets think about it.
Most sprinters start the season off at one place and end at another. If they have a good coach they’ll probably start off running decent and by the end of the season they will peak and run pretty fast. He has ran 10. in the past but to drop 3tenths over one season to me is not regular. I’ve never seen it happen. and we’re not talking about once but he went from running 10low on a regular to running 9.7s on a regular. only person I remember doing that is ben johnson. even gatlin and gay trended down. these jamaican guys do things that dont even look normal. I saw asafa powell jog for the last 15m and run 10.01. At least make it look hard. at least peak at a certain point during the season. equipment and training hasnt advanced that much. They are running times that it took other great sprinters years to get to.

http://youtube.com/watch?v=QbN5FjRaK6E

this is the clip of asafa. it looks like it was a 10.2

Let us clarify one thing. He did not run 10low on the regular. Since the age of 18, he ran a grand total of maybe 3 100m races before this season—some people here run that in one meet. Going 10.03 as season openers twice. That is while training for the 200/400.

http://iaaf.org/athletes/biographies/country=JAM/athcode=184599/index.html

Alot of guys usually hit that brick wall at 10.0s. this link shows where last year when he was in shape he ran a 10.03.

He was in great shape at this point in time. anybody that runs or has coached knows you don’t drop in time like that after you’ve been training for years. unlessen you have some help. For his coach to have him this fast at the 3rd meet of the year is just dumb. Logically he should burn out unlessen he is running slow and plans to run 9.6s later during the olympics.

What about Edwards being stuck at 17.4m for FOUR years before he broke the world record and PR by 3 feet?

Gay, Powell, and Bolt all made big jumps to improve their PR to under 10 seconds.

Here were the jumps:
Bolt - .31
Gay - .24
Powell - .15

You could make the argument that with a little more wind, a little longer legs this jump isnt all that odd

On another note, I think when we see a 200m performance, it will be a lot more clear.  If he blows away the 200m WR then he more-likely-than-not is doping, but if he doesnt improve much his 100m record is probably legit.

I don’t want to speculate on the probability of drug use by Bolt or anyone else without having evidence to back it up but one thing that I think might have been overlooked is that maybe he’s just peaked too early? The hopeful thinking is that if he’s running 9.72 now that he could run 9.6x in Beijing. The other possibility is that he may have already run his fastest races (9.76 and 9.72) and he’s now just got to hold on to as much as possible.

On a similar vain, I’m interested to see how the training disruptions from injury (pec tear, etc) are going to affect Asafa’s performance. I know in my programs that you have to maintain a high level of alternative training in such scenarios or performance dropoffs will occur. Asafa and his coach have previously said that he’s pretty lazy so it will be interesting if he’ll be able to keep up with Bolt and Gay.

19.67 for Bolt . . . anyone seen a video of the race yet?

I was looking for something but I couldn’t find anything. I heard he kinda eased up at the end. Right now, it looks like Bolt may be unstoppable.

I’d love to see him do a post Beijing 400m against Wariner and Merritt.