[quote author="cerebro" date="1168829000"]
[quote author="danimal9" date="1168828612"]
What makes someone naturally fast? Over what distances? There is considerable evidence that Olympic Lifters are the fastest athletes over 15m.
Can you point to that evidence because I have seen nothing substantial to prove that–just some conjecture and statements. No real studies w/ times.[/quote]There actually are 2-3 studies that indicate that OLers at least hold their own with sprinters over 10-30m. These studies were conducted at several Olympiads. I've got them somewhere but the last time I checked for them I couldn't find them. In any case, OL and sprinting are too different ball games. After the initial acceleration elasticity, mobility, rate of force development all become much more important. From an anthropometic standpoint this is evidenced in the longer legs, shorter torsos, and longer achilles tendons of sprinters. OLers tend to have shorter legs and torsos and while their power outputs are off the charts the rate of force development is slow compared to a sprinter.
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I heard of one happening and saw it referenced on some site, but there were no numbers at all given, just a summary of an abstract (if that makes any sense at all).