[quote author="Nick Newman" date="1275011178"]30.85 is a very very good world record. Bolt wasn’t close really. Says a lot about Johnson.
How is 30.97 (off by 0.12 over 300m) “not close”??
That is ridiculously close, and indicates that Bolt’s PB 200-300m drop off (19.19-30.97 = 11.78) is not that far off MJ’s (19.32-30.85 = 11.53). Tells me Bolt definitely could go low 44’s even right now. The drop off is bigger if you consider that MJ’s 200m SB at the time of that 300m was 19.71, but saying Bolt wasn’t close is absurd.
Plus Johnson’s was in very favorable conditions plus at altitude vs. rainy and cold.[/quote]
Wholeheartedly agree. Anybody that watched part of the telecast could see how extremely poor the conditions were overall. Robles ran 13.1 in the hurdles, winning by many tenths. Most of the times, outside of Asafa’s and Bolt’s, were quite bad. Bolt going 30.97 in his first serious outing further than 200m since he was about 16-17 is pretty damn good. He would have had the record with better race distribution alone, let alone if the conditions were more favorable and he ran a few more.