9.58- WOW

Hell of a predication there. Does that mean you won your own contest? 🙂

Clickhere[/url] for some Analysis of Bolt’s 9.58 World Record.

It’s difficult to compare Beijing to Berlin. According to Speedfreak the track is a mule in Berlin. However we must compare as best we can.
I think Bolt’s performance in Beijing was better. In spite of his pre-race bravado in Berlin, he actually ran with a bit of nerves and kept watching the others. In Beijing he ran with no expectation, no threat and simply ran with nothing to lose. It’s a bit of a shame that in the Beijing Olympics that he didn’t run to the line for we might have seen the greatest 100m ever (unless we move the competition to Kathmandu – high altitude). However the drama surrounding what “could have been” did encapsulate the world audience and made our sport a source of discussion still evident today.
In Berlin, the world has shared in our drama and speculation as to who would win. There were the Asafa sympathisors, the Tyson “knock off the big guy” supporters, and the “Lightning Bolt is the man” devotees. The fact that Bolt was pushed to the line made Berlin a better race. The fact that Tyson Gay ran a perfect race but lost by more than 0.1 of a second is testament in itself as to the awesome talent of Usain Bolt. The fact that Asafa ran the same time in the final as he has run in the past in heats where he jogs the last 40m is also a sad indictment of his inability to cope with personal expectations and nerves and follow a technical race strategy.
Bolt’s Olympic 100m performance is the greatest wasted opportunity of all time to but it kept the world encapsulated and tempted the other competitors to catch him. His 9.58s performance in Berlin confirms the talent he teased us with at the Beijing Olympics.

Click[url=https://www.sportsscientists.com/]here[/url] for some Analysis of Bolt’s 9.58 World Record.

That was a really good read thanks…

I think he was better in Berlin…The main issue with the Olympics was his finish…

His START first 60m was better in Berlin…as well as his finish…no comparison really…

10m split times

That is crazy . . .

1.74, .99, .90, .86, .83, .82, .81, .82, .83, .83

His deceleration is barely there. From 40m on, that is just sick.

Do you think it is possible to NOT decelerate if you have someone fast enough who hits their top speed DEEP into the race?

Chad: I have always been told and read/seen that a series like that, the other similar series that springs to mind is Flo-Jo, that it is an indicator that top velocity has not really been reached…either scenario like you said is crazy 🙄

How wasn’t max velocity reached? FloJo has the same splits IIRC all the way out. This seems the most obvious example that he did.

Chad: I have always been told and read/seen that a series like that, the other similar series that springs to mind is Flo-Jo, that it is an indicator that top velocity has not really been reached…either scenario like you said is crazy 🙄

According to the old model of sprinting, one achieves top speed which then bleeds as they near the finish – hence the obsession with speed endurance. The new model may be that some sprinters (and/or coaches) have realised they can make changes to their technique/posture/biomechanics and maintain their top speed better. The likely mechanism is that the technical changes allow a slightly different contribution from muscles to force thereby delaying or bypassing a reliance on anaerobic glycolysis to provide energy that sustains top end speed. Kerron Stewart has figured it out either on her own or in conjunction with her coach. Bolt…I’m not sure about as I can’t get video footage slowed down enough to analyse his biomechanics properly. 😉 I wonder how flexible he is as those ankles seem to be rather stiff.

Davan:
My understanding re: Flo-jo example but also generally is that many more than 2x10m segments in a row the “same” (unless I am misinterpreting the numbers…similar numbers indicate that whatever that velocity is is being maintained, correct?) raises the immediate question of, “Was true MaxV reached?”…as Jeremy said the idea/theory partially was that if true MaxV was attained it is next to “impossible” to sustain it for more than about 20m and if the numbers show that it was sustained, then was true MaxV achieved?

In either case, scary. IF someone has figured out how to sustain very high velocities (say WR level) and others can not…or, as with Bolt, the above theory is true, then that he should be capable of even higher velocity is almost frightening. The flip side being if someone has figured it out it is only a matter of time until the methodology is “known” and then it is a matter of application…the other, even higher velocity, is, shall we say, more problematic.