[quote author="Jake Sumner" date="1249786650"]
The world record in 1980 was 10.03 by Jim Hines (9.95A). Valery Borzov had run 10.07, .04 off this, Allen Wells had run 10.11, only .08 off the WR, and Petar Petrov had run 10.13, .1 off the WR. As you can see, the differnce was incredibly small, even in a completely integrated sport.
Eastern Europeans were ahead of the west in training and drug use and closed the gap.
Now the difference is .31 in the 100. But that is an outlier, the majority of medallists are still in the 9.8 to 9.9 range. That is why I feel that whites are competitive in the 100 when at full capacity and potential.
The West caught on to the training techniques and the drug use, now the gap has reopened.
It is my personal opinion that white athletes are very competitive with black athletes in the 100m.
You are in total denial. Make list of every sub 10.1 100m race. Not every racer, but every result. It will be very long. It will include results over a 40 year span. You will see racers from every socio-economic background. Racers with good dietary habits and bad. Racers with traditionally good training habits and not so good. They will be, with a few exceptions, of West African descent. No amount of explanation and excuse making will overcome the preponderance of this data.
1. whites and blacks are the same speed but the former is inhibited by socio economic factors
2. whites and blacks are the same speed until the black athlete focuses on training, because their bodies respond better to explosive training, and are less geared to enhance cardio and focus on the CNS, etc.
3. steroids are taken by the nations where black sprinters typically compete
4. blacks are faster than whites at top speed, but all else is equal
5. blacks are faster than whites in every way
6. the top 20 sprinters in the world are always black, and it should be that way
7. the top sprinters in the world can be any race, but blacks should always have the WR
8. it’s all mental
9. I’m just confused to why blacks have improved so much, and whites have not gotten much faster
No, no, no, no but almost, under 150-200m yes, define ‘top’,no, yes.[/quote]
Certainly those are valid points to think about. But I could do the exact same thing as you did, in the exact opposite way, and make equally valid points. For instance, I could say that the narrower difference in times between whites and blacks in in 1980 was because LESS steroids and PEDs were in use (E. Europeans were not the only competitive whites), and now that the gap has widened steroids are used more rampantly. After all, the majority of 100m gold medallists after Allen Wells have tested positive for PEDs (Gatlin, Christie, Greene, Johnson, Lewis, etc.). So to say that whites were more competitive back then because of steroid use, and blacks today are competitive because they are faster, even though there are more positive tests now and faster times are being run, is a bit of a double standard in itself.