Elitetrack: Sport Training & Conditioning

Well, by now everyone in the world knows that Usaine Bolt is not a human being. At least not by the standards we have been using for the last couple millennium. His 100m performance of 9.69 was just mind-boggling. 9.69 beat Bolt’s previous world record by 0.03 seconds and is faster than the WR of just last year by 0.05 seconds. That’s like a swimmer breaking a world record by 4 seconds…never m
 
     
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good read…
very good read…

but how were you able to compile the table?

Good blog.  I didn’t really see it mentioned in the blog, but this was with basically nil wind.  9.5’s are certainly something within the realm of possibility for Bolt.

klp2332 - 19 August 2008 05:22 AM

good read…
very good read…

but how were you able to compile the table?

I was sent some split data from a friend. I don’t believe it’s the IAAF research grade / official data but I believe it’s pretty accurate.

Matt Gardner - 19 August 2008 11:48 AM

Good blog.  I didn’t really see it mentioned in the blog, but this was with basically nil wind.  9.5’s are certainly something within the realm of possibility for Bolt.

Right. If you add in 2 m/s wind on to the ideal race model I created plus a little (but still within allowable) altitude you definitely go in to the mid to low 9.5s.

Mike Young - 19 August 2008 11:54 AM

Matt Gardner - 19 August 2008 11:48 AM

Good blog.  I didn’t really see it mentioned in the blog, but this was with basically nil wind.  9.5’s are certainly something within the realm of possibility for Bolt.

Right. If you add in 2 m/s wind on to the ideal race model I created plus a little (but still within allowable) altitude you definitely go in to the mid to low 9.5s.

Just what I wanted to hear, a nice tailwind and you got yourself a good 9.5. Hopefully wr will see this next year maybe at worlds?

It will be nice to see what he does in the 200m.  I’m curious to see if he’ll hold back or go for the WR…

When the acceleration is shown on a graph it´s normally shown as a climbing line, but given that one actually feel the “changing gears” it would be interesting to see the actual speed pattern with help of a laser gun instead of splits every 10m.

The problem with the laser guns (I’ve used them on hurdlers and jumpers) is that there’s so much noise (from athlete movement, not being centered on the athlete’s back, etc) that it has to be smoothed quite a bit and then doesn’t become much more useful than the splits. They give you the data but it can be anomalous. The way to really do it would be to put a GPS unit on the athlete’s jersey OR set up data collection points at 1 or 2m intervals so that you could get the more even curve your speaking of. The problem with the latter, it will rarely if ever work when there’s more than one person in a race.

True.
Is there any implementation of the Doppler effect? Usage of high freq. sounds can give you a good shot at the real time. Another option is using radio transmitors, as used (experimentally) on some soccer balls.

Overhead(camera on cable)shot, any motion analysis software.
There could also be some feedback from the camera rolling along side the track over the 100m straight i.e. between a “camera log” and motion analysis it should work.

anyone else notice that he beat the 60m record, by almost a tenth, en route to this 100m record

RussZHC - 19 August 2008 04:48 PM

Overhead(camera on cable)shot, any motion analysis software.
There could also be some feedback from the camera rolling along side the track over the 100m straight i.e. between a “camera log” and motion analysis it should work.

An overhead camera wouldn’t work too well unless it was completely stationary over each split point. That would work pretty well. If you’re going to use moving cameras on a track they really need to be from the side and be relatively matched with each person or I suspect you’d get huge perspective errors.

The problem with taking 10m splits on the 100m is that slight errors of 0.01-0.02 can make the subsequent splits anomalous if you don’t catch it.

better accelerometers possibly attached to the athletes hips?

I am actually trying things with my wiimotes right now.  It’s great stuff.  Accelerometer and IR Camera rolled into one unit.