Elitetrack: Sport Training & Conditioning

dbandre - 21 August 2008 02:53 PM

Chad Williams - 21 August 2008 02:26 PM

I am with drive on this one, Merritt is in Wariner’s head and he has lost focus on his own race. It is not a coaching issue. Wariner can’t run with Merritt on his inside. It is equal to Asafa getting 5th in the finals when he should have coasted to 2nd. We didn’t blame that on his coach.

I think Powell has shown he has been wildly inconsistent after 3 rounds of 100m.  Which is the total opposite of what Wariner has done.  If an athlete doesn’t execute like they should have then at least part of, if not all the blame should go to the coach.

I do not know half of what most on here know about track BUT I am an avid fan and I am observant.

Powell’s coach also coached the GOLD MEDALIST in the Womens’s 100m so….The problem with Powell is very unlikely coach related unless he and Francis just don’t click at all which to me can’t be the case either because Powell previously was blasting off 9.7’s a few years in a row so they had something going at some point. TO me the blame for Powell rests 99% with Powell. Apparently he was following someone else’s direction besides his coach when he tore his pec earlier this year.

To me Powell is not a gamer. He will make an excuse before he even lines up and it is all confidence related it looks like to me. I hate it for him but he doesn’t seem to have IT to go along with his talent. Leroy Burrell seems similar.

Devil’s advocate:

So Wariner should have stayed with Hart so he could enjoy great success like Sanya?

mortac8 - 21 August 2008 07:24 PM

Devil’s advocate:

So Wariner should have stayed with Hart so he could enjoy great success like Sanya?

Sanya problem was race tactics, had nothing to do with workouts.

utfootball4 - 21 August 2008 07:40 PM

Sanya problem was race tactics, had nothing to do with workouts.

How do you know?  Her PR is 48.70.  She was running 48 pace and died.

mortac8 - 21 August 2008 07:43 PM

utfootball4 - 21 August 2008 07:40 PM

Sanya problem was race tactics, had nothing to do with workouts.

How do you know?  Her PR is 48.70.  She was running 48 pace and died.

\

Looking at the race she went out too hard and Sanya even agreed. She didnt get her ass beat like JW did, thats training..

mortac8 - 21 August 2008 07:24 PM

Devil’s advocate:

So Wariner should have stayed with Hart so he could enjoy great success like Sanya?

Everyone is quick to blame Ford for JW’s loss, yet no one has blamed Hart for Sanya’s poor race distribution.

Chad Williams - 21 August 2008 09:32 PM

mortac8 - 21 August 2008 07:24 PM

Devil’s advocate:

So Wariner should have stayed with Hart so he could enjoy great success like Sanya?

Everyone is quick to blame Ford for JW’s loss, yet no one has blamed Hart for Sanya’s poor race distribution.

How can we blame Hart for her race distribution unless we wanted him to run the race for her??

Chad Williams - 21 August 2008 09:32 PM

mortac8 - 21 August 2008 07:24 PM

Devil’s advocate:

So Wariner should have stayed with Hart so he could enjoy great success like Sanya?

Everyone is quick to blame Ford for JW’s loss, yet no one has blamed Hart for Sanya’s poor race distribution.

Richards has been more consistent under Hart although she has a long way to go.  However, I think it comes down to how well Wariner and Hart communicated with each other.  In 2004 and 2005 Wariner was more vulnerable and more runners within his then PR than now. 

It’s also tough blame Hart for Richards if we don’t know if her Behcet’s is starting to flare up again.  Although I didn’t consider her a clear favorite as she hasn’t been the same runner since her diagnosis last year.

I received some very unofficial race splits for Wariner. Apparently, in the semi he went out in 20.7. In the final it was 20.9.

Mike Young - 22 August 2008 12:49 AM

I received some very unofficial race splits for Wariner. Apparently, in the semi he went out in 20.7. In the final it was 20.9.

I have Wariner at 10.3-10.4, 20.7-20.8, and 31.8 through 100m, 200m, and 300m.  Slightly ahead of Merritt and Neville till that point. At 310m Merritt and Wariner are even at 32.9-33.0s and Merritt pretty much holds that to the line, suggesting Merritt had a much more even race distribution.  I think Wariner went for the record in the early part of the race and paid for it later.  He made the stagger on Rooney in the first 100m and ended up chasing Neville who was running an unbelievable clip for him 20.8 through 200m himself.  Merritt looks to have split 10.4-10.5 and 20.9 which resulted in him coming out of the turn with more momentum, his 3rd 100m segment was .2s faster than Wariner’s. 

My guess is instead of focusing on a complete race, he was focusing on the start and the first 200m just like he did at the trials were the same thing happened.  That’s a repeatable result that never happened to him in 5+ years with Hart.  I have to believe Hart did not believe Wariner was going to get the record this year and that was part of their falling out.  I don’t believe it had anything to do with Merritt.

Yep. I saw the same thing. I don’t train my 400m guys like Hart but I am ADAMANT about having them follow a very specific race distribution that is very similar to Harts. I’ve found that unless you make constant reminders that the tendency will always be for a 400m guy to think they will run faster by taking it out harder. In reality, the opposite is almost always true and the easiest 400m where the athlete finishes thinking they left something in the tank are often times the fastest.

I think everyone else except Merritt underperformed in the final. Having followed the games pretty closely, there have been some exceptional “deaths” right after easy looking previous rounds. Maybe it’s just a question of retrospective confirmation bias? However, it seems that many athletes have complained about them getting lactic acid much quicker than normally – perhaps air pollution is playing a little trick on people more prone to being affected by such changes?

Heck, I’m surprised Wariner got silver with the time he ran.

Yeah. Kinda shocking that a 44.74 took second. If you would have asked me before the games began, I would have told you that that wouldn’t be in the top 5.

Here’s a review of Wariner’s Final and Semifinal.

Edit: I changed the file from a Word Document to PDF.

I’ve watched the video 3x now. I think Wariner could have run at least 44.25 in that race but he gave up once Merritt passed him. The deceleration that Wariner had is completely different than what Bolt did. Bolt was coming from a higher velocity (more momentum = stay moving at the same state of motion easier) and from 78m-90m just took his foot off the pedal. Wariner on the other hand had less momentum and actually seemed to put his foot on the brakes.