Bolt’s performance is Beijing was astounding for one main reason; we were shellshocked by the fact that he ran so fast compared to any man before – 9.68s seemed unbelievable
Then he smashed that record in Berlin a year later – but he was challenged by Tyson GayThis race was not so great for Bolt; whilst still an outstanding performance we may have been expecting another world record. But Bolt is no longer that new kid on the block with nothing to lose; he had to play it safe in the blocks. He was expected to do something amazing.
But the race was amazing because the rest of the (SWAD) world has lifted to run magnificently under 10 seconds. What are sprinters doing now that allows for a blanket of exceptional times? SWAD’s aside, there were two Asian sprinters in the semi-finals.
And Gatlin…whilst it may have been better for Tyson to get the bronze from a politicly correct perspective (why didn’t he lunge at the line?) we should embrace the message offered by this opportunity. Gatlin is running faster now than he ran before without the use of performance enhancing drugs (to date so far). The message here is that you can run faster without PED’s so why ever take the risk. Did anyone notice Gatlin’s almost bent-legged pawing action?
What are the reasons for Usain and Yohan’s success? Why did Asafa catch his foot on the ground as he was trying to swing it forward in the early phase of acceleration? Could it be a deliberate technique which Asafa couldn’t execute as well as Usain and Yohan?
Gatlin did look very low in the hips. What was up with that?