I would like to thank the emails I get from members wanting to get the myths of sports performance dispelled. Lately, the garbage coming from coaches sharing what they are doing with athletes or rewriting history is bad for sports and this industry so here goes.
I hear that bobsleigh athletes are freaks. They out sprint the sprinters, out lift the lifters, and are leaner and bigger than linebackers.
The 30m national team record I believe is 3.53 from Pascal Caron (Canada). So are bobsleigh athletes faster than sprinters you say?
0-10m: 1.69s (Minus RT), Raymond Stewart (9.96s Tokyo WCH 1991, w+1.2m/s), Frankie Fredericks (9.86s Lausanne GP 1996, w-0.4m/s), Maurice Greene (9.79WR Athens GP 1999, w+0.1m/s & 9.82s Edmonton WCH 2001, w-0.2m/s) & Tim Montgomery (9.85s Edmonton WCH 2001, w-0.2m/s) (Note: 1.69s, also by Ben Johnson Seoul OG 1988 DQ*, 9.79s w+1.1m/s)
10-20m: 1.00s, Bruny Surin (9.84s Sevilla WCH 1999, w+0.2m/s) & Maurice Greene (9.82s Edmonton WCH 2001, w-0.2m/s) (Note: 1.00s, also by Ben Johnson Roma WCH sf. 1987 DQ*)
20-30m: 0.89s, Maurice Greene (9.87s Stockholm GP 1999, w+1.3m/s)
My math says that the best splits of all time by everyone in the world added up to 3.58 assuming you could put it together. Why do I share this? Because they time with a rolling start and time a meter afterwards. When they line up in the 60m they struggle after 30m and none of them were able to get below the USATF qualifying times in the 60m. I have had guys go 3.41 with this timing method. Like the article about the testing that was done at the 1964 Mexico Olympics the numbers and stories are just scooby doo doo. Bobsleigh is a great sport and the athletes are very dedicated. Frankly they are being used by performance coaches to sell lame products or build sketchy resumes.
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