Posted In: Sprints
Because of his amazing run in the 100m and his unbelievable season thus far, I think it would be very valuable to start a thread just on Usain. If you find a news article copy and paste it here and if there’s anything you find especially valuable in the article highlight it or bold it to make it easy to find. I’ll start this thread off. If you post, please put the author’s title in there and the url to the original article.
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McYam meals fuel fastest man[/url]
Posted by: John Chalmers
Yesterday I took a mean swipe at sports journalists for the vacuous questions they put to athletes. I must tip my baseball cap today, however, to the reporter who asked Usain Bolt how the fastest man in the world had spent his day.
It seems the Jamaican did a lot of time sleeping, and in between feasted on “nuggets”.
It took Bolt senior, speaking from Jamaica, to put the record straight – and perhaps deter millions of adoring young athletes from a lifetime of fast food. His son’s gold medal, Wellesley Bolt said, was the result of a diet rich with the vegetable yam.
I can see it now: the McYam Happy Meal.
Maybe there is something special in root vegetables like yam. The secret of Samoan weighlifter Ele Opeloge’s strength, according to her coach, is a variety known as taro.
No doubt the majority of other Olympians in Beijing are eating an exemplary diet packed with fruit, vegetables, tasty tubers and other unprocessed food. Still, the McDonald’s restaurant at the athletes’ village has been doing brisk trade.
Take Jay Lyon, Canada’s best hope for an archery medal, who admits he is probably not the archetypal Olympian.
“I’m not much of an athlete – I eat a lot of McDonalds,” he said ahead of the Games. “I’m probably overweight for an athlete.” Lyon weighs 96 kilograms (212 pounds).
Lyon only has to stand behind a line and shoot some arrows, so “probably overweight” is probably okay.
But what about the athletes who have to break a sweat for their medals? No problem. Just ask U.S. sprint and long jump gold medallist Carl Lewis, who had this to say at a McDonald’s burger-making contest in Beijing: “I eat McDonald’s. I’ve always eaten McDonald’s. I even worked at McDonald’s. It was my first job.”
ELITETRACK Founder
Here’s the new all-time 100m times adjusted for wind and altitude. Compiled by Charley Shaffer. Usain is a crazy 0.1 seconds faster than the second best time on the list.
ELITETRACK Founder
I counted 41 steps, fwiw.
That is missing alot of times?
Is it? Which ones? Remember it’s not the same as the all-time top 10. It is the wind and altitude ADJUSTED top 10. Basically, it’s giving the times of what a runner would do if the athlete were competing without wind (0.0mps) assistance or altitude assistance (sea level).
ELITETRACK Founder
So what you saying is that Bolt could have run about 9.61 with a wind of +1.7. Sick. Even more so, had he run all the way through the line with a wind.
I am calling Bolt to run a 9.5x given the right conditions.
not really about bolt …. but it predicts the limit for 100m is 9.48
Their predictions are a few years off though but pretty accurate
How would it stop at 9.48? What about someone with Bolt’s raw speed who could be able to get a faster start and have a 2m/s tailwind in perfect conditions?
Here’s the new all-time 100m times adjusted for wind and altitude. Compiled by Charley Shaffer. Usain is a crazy 0.1 seconds faster than the second best time on the list.
I think Obadele Thompson from barbados ran a 9.6 something at altitude while in college in the states. If so missing from this list.
[quote author="Mike Young" date="1219030505"]Here’s the new all-time 100m times adjusted for wind and altitude. Compiled by Charley Shaffer. Usain is a crazy 0.1 seconds faster than the second best time on the list.
I think Obadele Thompson from barbados ran a 9.6 something at altitude while in college in the states. If so missing from this list.[/quote]It’s not missing. He ran a 9.69. With the altitude and wind adjustment it didn’t make the list since it was achieved with both a huge tailwind AND was done at altitude.
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[quote author="griff" date="1219099928"][quote author="Mike Young" date="1219030505"]Here’s the new all-time 100m times adjusted for wind and altitude. Compiled by Charley Shaffer. Usain is a crazy 0.1 seconds faster than the second best time on the list.
I think Obadele Thompson from barbados ran a 9.6 something at altitude while in college in the states. If so missing from this list.[/quote]It’s not missing. He ran a 9.69. With the altitude and wind adjustment it didn’t make the list since it was achieved with both a huge tailwind AND was done at altitude.[/quote]
I bow to your amazing mastermind knowledge, we should ship you to Europe to be our commentator for the olympics on tv, we currently have Michael Johnson but you could make the team perfect for the obessed fanatics like me…..
we should ship you to Europe to be our commentator for the olympics on tv, we currently have Michael Johnson but you could make the team perfect for the obessed fanatics like me…..
My wife says the exact same thing but I think part of it might be so she can get rid of me for a while!
ELITETRACK Founder
[quote author="Winnesota" date="1219039248"]
That is missing alot of times?
Is it? Which ones? Remember it’s not the same as the all-time top 10. It is the wind and altitude ADJUSTED top 10. Basically, it’s giving the times of what a runner would do if the athlete were competing without wind (0.0mps) assistance or altitude assistance (sea level).[/quote]
Powell 9.74…Gay 9.68….dix 9.8…
Just to add to the super hero status of Usain, chicken nuggets and chest beating aside, i saw a newspaper article to-day where they showed photos that the laces on his right spike were also open..dont know if it can be viewed on line- News Paper was Irish Independent.
Sprinters Marvel at Bolt and Are Sure That His Best Is Yet to Come
By Christ Clarey
BEIJING – More than 24 hours had passed since Usain Bolt’s redefining of the 100 meters, and Ato Boldon, the voluble Trinidadian who used to run the 100 for a good living, was still trying to comprehend what he had seen.
“It’s amazing, and I’m not sure I’ve wrapped my mind around it yet,” said Boldon, a four-time Olympic medalist turned television commentator.
Bolt, for his part, did not appear to be asking himself too many questions on Tuesday, as he comfortably negotiated his way to the final of his next challenge: the 200 meters.
Some, including Michael Johnson, are increasingly warning that Johnson’s ethereal 12-year-old record of 19.32 seconds from the Atlanta Olympics is on borrowed time. But for now, the only world record that the aptly named Bolt, of Jamaica, holds is the 100, which he ran in 9.69 seconds on Saturday in the Bird’s Nest despite slowing to celebrate in the final quarter of the race.
He ran 9.69 with no measurable wind, which is highly unusual for an outdoor race. Those are not ideal conditions for a sprinter. Ideal conditions are closer to what Bolt had in New York in June, when he had a following wind of 1.7 meters per second while setting the record in 9.72 seconds.
The consensus is that every meter per second of following wind subtracts approximately five one-hundredths of a second from a sprinter’s time. “You put the wind he had in New York behind the 9.69 here, and O.K., now we could be down in the 9.5s except that he shut down with 20 meters to go,” Boldon said. “So now, I’m like, O.K., is that in the 9.4s? It’s mind-boggling.”
Or is it? Considering the checkered doping records of too many former 100-meter world-record holders, it is best to keep the superlatives under rein. In the last decade alone, the Americans Tim Montgomery and Justin Gatlin have been suspended and stripped of the record.
But Jean-François Toussaint, the director of the Paris-based Institute of Biomedical Research and Epidemiology in Sports, recently told the French sports daily L’Equipe that according to statistical models, 75 percent of the existing track and field world records are essentially out of reach but that the men’s 100 is among the 25 percent still in play.
Bolt, who has never failed a drug test, has arguments in his favor. He is not a suspiciously late bloomer. Instead, he is a precocious talent (the youngest male world junior champion in the 200 at age 15) who has only recently started running the 100 seriously and who, at 21, is the youngest man to break the 100 record.
More intriguing from a technical standpoint, there is the new paradigm theory, linked to Bolt’s unusual 6-foot-5 stature – three inches taller than Carl Lewis and two inches taller than Tommie Smith, the sprinters to whom he is most often compared.
Though Bolt is the tallest man to hold the record, he is not the first sprinter of his height to succeed in this era. Francis Obikwelu, the Nigerian-born runner who now represents Portugal, is also 6-5 and won the silver medal in the 100 at the 2004 Olympics.
But Bolt has now run 0.17 seconds faster than the 30-year-old Obikwelu has ever run with significantly less refined technique. So how did he manage a 9.69 with no wind on Saturday?
First, he had a fine opening phase of the race by his standards, even though he had the seventh-slowest reaction time in the eight-man field. “It takes a while when you’re that tall to actually get into the groove when you’re coming from sitting down basically,” said Donovan Bailey, the 1996 Olympic champion in the 100 and a former world-record holder. “I actually thought after 30 meters that Asafa Powell or even Walter Dix would be leading, but they weren’t. I called it all week. What’s going to end up happening if he jumps on them before 30 meters? Good night.”
Boldon thinks early pressure applied by the eventual silver medalist Richard Thompson in an adjacent lane helped Bolt push himself further. “An excellent start for him next to guys six, seven, eight inches shorter is not going to look great on tape,” Boldon said.
Boldon and Bailey see ample room for improvement in Bolt’s early phase. “He’s 21 years old and been really running 100 meters for four months,” Bailey said. “He’s raw.”
Boldon thrust his head forward and then jerked his chin upward. “His neck is arched coming out of the blocks like this,” Boldon said. “That’s a big no-no for somebody that tall.”
But both Boldon and Bailey marveled at the baseline speed Bolt displayed on Saturday from 30 to 70 meters, which is when a 100-meter runner hits his stride. “I don’t know how it’s possible to get faster in his middle 40 but he’s going to,” Bailey said laughing.
Bolt has a high knee lift for a sprinter, which Boldon said helps him generate force. But despite the physics involved, Bolt has a quicker turnover rate than would be expected of someone of his height, which means that he can finish one stride and begin another in a surprising hurry.
“A big wheel is going to turn over slower than a small wheel, and it used to be thought that was a disadvantage except now when you see this guy who has the turnover of somebody six feet,” Boldon said. “Add that to the fact that he’s probably covering three or four more inches with every stride and that he’s only taking 40 to 41 strides to finish a 100, and you cannot argue with the math.”
Boldon said he and the former 100-meter record-holder Maurice Greene, who are both 5-9, used to finish their races in 45 or 46 strides. Tyson Gay and Powell, Bolt’s top current competition, are at about 45. Lewis required between 43 and 44 at his fastest.
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And here’s the rest of that article:
Boldon said Bolt was at 41 strides on Saturday but would surely have been at 40 had he not slowed toward the end. “All of a sprint’s velocity is created from point of touchdown until the foot is directly below the body,” said Dr. Ralph Mann, a biomechanist with USA Track and Field. “Bolt’s long stride means that he is creating velocity for a longer period than shorter runners.”
The French sprint coach Jacques Piasenta contends that Bolt, irrespective of his height, has “extraordinary feet” that allow him to push particularly hard and fast off the track and act as propulsers more than shock absorbers.
The rub is that Bolt stopped trying to run fast in the final 20 meters on Saturday. Bailey said he believed Bolt would have run “between 9.55 and 9.57” if he had pushed through the finish. “I’ll be conservative and say 9.59,” Boldon said.
But neither man was feeling conservative about Bolt’s future. “We don’t get style points, and that’s what’s good about the 100 meters, but he absolutely will get technically sounder,” Bailey said. “He’ll get tighter, like maybe Carl Lewis, systematically down the track.”
The last word, as usual, went to Boldon: “Swimming has their LZR suits and their deeper pools,” he said. “We have a 6-foot-5-inch guy that’s running 9.6s and beating the rest of the Olympic field by two tenths of a second. He’s our new technology.”
ELITETRACK Founder
41 steps in 9.69s is 4.23 steps per second average (Bolt) 243.90 cm average per step
43 steps in 9.74s is 4.40 steps per second average (Powell at Reiti) 232.56 cm average per step
45 steps in 9.79s is 4.59 steps per second average (Greene and Johnson) 222.22 cm average per step
45 steps in 9.84s/9.85s is 4.57 steps per second average (Bailey and Boldon) 222.22 cm average per step
44 steps in 9.86s is 4.46 steps per second average (Lewis) 227.27 cm average per step
Seems like his turnover isn’t even close to the same rate as other sprinters, it’s significantly slower. This of course doesn’t account for a partial step at the end or reaction time and is based on the information given above and analysis of Powell’s Reiti run. So much for the analysis of former WC sprinters. No wonder most of them aren’t very good at coaching.
I would say given the progression, for Bolt to run 9.60s he would have to run the race in almost 2 less steps. Theoretically this would allow him to 2 step the 110H race if he hurdled and lower that WR by a 1-1.5 seconds. Did his intentional slowing cause him lose almost 2 steps over the last 20m of the race??? I don’t know. Mike could you get the number of steps he took in each 10m segment? I think it’s fair to say if he took 2 more steps in his last 10m segment than he did in his previous 10m segment that he would be at least approaching if not matching the 9.58-9.60s range Mike specified.
I dont think he would have gone under 9.6 if we would have kept running.
Anyone have split breakdowns for this race? Ill be interested to see bolts, .83? .82?
If he had a typical deceleration he would about 9.62-9.64s. Did you read Mike’s blog?
I would say given the progression, for Bolt to run 9.60s he would have to run the race in almost 2 less steps. Theoretically this would allow him to 2 step the 110H race if he hurdled and lower that WR by a 1-1.5 seconds. Did his intentional slowing cause him lose almost 2 steps over the last 20m of the race??? I don’t know. Mike could you get the number of steps he took in each 10m segment? I think it’s fair to say if he took 2 more steps in his last 10m segment than he did in his previous 10m segment that he would be at least approaching if not matching the 9.58-9.60s range Mike specified.
Theoretically, Bolt could grab many records of his choice: 100, 200, 400, 400h…maybe even 110h & LJ haha. The 100 is where the money is at so why worry so much about the 200/400 stuff?
[quote author="dbandre" date="1219220572"]
I would say given the progression, for Bolt to run 9.60s he would have to run the race in almost 2 less steps. Theoretically this would allow him to 2 step the 110H race if he hurdled and lower that WR by a 1-1.5 seconds. Did his intentional slowing cause him lose almost 2 steps over the last 20m of the race??? I don’t know. Mike could you get the number of steps he took in each 10m segment? I think it’s fair to say if he took 2 more steps in his last 10m segment than he did in his previous 10m segment that he would be at least approaching if not matching the 9.58-9.60s range Mike specified.
Theoretically, Bolt could grab many records of his choice: 100, 200, 400, 400h…maybe even 110h & LJ haha. The 100 is where the money is at so why worry so much about the 200/400 stuff?[/quote]
Beating Wariner or Merritt in the 400m race would be worth more than any other accomplishment.
I brought up the 2 stepping hurdles because it’s something that has never been done, but if he did he would put that record out of reach for a very very long time.
[quote author="dbandre" date="1219220572"]
I would say given the progression, for Bolt to run 9.60s he would have to run the race in almost 2 less steps. Theoretically this would allow him to 2 step the 110H race if he hurdled and lower that WR by a 1-1.5 seconds. Did his intentional slowing cause him lose almost 2 steps over the last 20m of the race??? I don’t know. Mike could you get the number of steps he took in each 10m segment? I think it’s fair to say if he took 2 more steps in his last 10m segment than he did in his previous 10m segment that he would be at least approaching if not matching the 9.58-9.60s range Mike specified.
Theoretically, Bolt could grab many records of his choice: 100, 200, 400, 400h…maybe even 110h & LJ haha. The 100 is where the money is at so why worry so much about the 200/400 stuff?[/quote]I was actually thinking something similar. If he really is a 200m man like he’s still claiming then he may very well be the first person capable of holding all three sprint records at one time (if so inclined). Now THAT would be dominance.
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I’ve heard of one person and seen another 2 step hurdle. The latter was also 6’5″ and fairly fast. He found that it was better to shuffle than to do the 2 step though. Obviously, he wasn’t as fast as Bolt though. 2 stepping would also raise the technical demands of the event but if mastered would certainly have some rewards. Personally, I’d just like to see Bolt make a go at the 400m record. Or at least be the first man to go <10, <20, and <44. The first two he has handily.
ELITETRACK Founder
I cannot believe someone has 2 stepped every hurdle and didn’t break 12 seconds.
[quote author="Winnesota" date="1219220095"]I dont think he would have gone under 9.6 if we would have kept running.
Anyone have split breakdowns for this race? Ill be interested to see bolts, .83? .82?
Did you see this? LINK[/url][/quote]
No I didnt. so he did run .82 thats insane haha…and not too bad of a flying 30m lol
Beijing, China – Note the date now- 2014: men’s 400m, Usain Bolt, 42.5.
No, not the ‘Lightening’ man’s own prediction- Bolt avoids talk of the 400 as much as possible- but as firm an answer to a journalist’s query as you’re ever likely to hear from an athletics coach.
Not just any coach, either, but Bert Cameron, the first World 400m champion from the World Championships in Helsinki back in 1983. Cameron is now Jamaica’snational 400m coach and a man who watches Bolt train virtually everyday.
How does he know the date? “He promised me,” says Cameron. “He will do it and he promised it’ll be six years from now.” And how fast will he go? “42.5,” says Cameron without the merest hesitation.
Five days ago, if anyone had made such a suggestion it would have been treated as a joke. But five days ago the world of men’s sprinting was on a different planet, one a whole lot closer to the normal orbit of track and field that most of us have come to understand.
In Beijing, Lightening Bolt has struck twice in five days to blow the men’s sprints into a whole different stratosphere. “It blew my mind and blew the world’s mind,” as Bolt himself said after becoming the first man since Carl Lewis in 1984 to win the Olympic sprint double and the first man ever to do so with two world records. Only in 1968, when Jim Hines won the 100 and Tommie Smith the 200, and 1996 when Donovan Bailey took the 100m and Michael Johnson, the 200, have both records gone at the same Olympics.
“I’ve written history pretty much,” as Bolt puts it with a characteristic shrug. Back home in Jamaica, he tells us, “everywhere is pretty much blocked off”. That’s what the Jamaican Prime Minister Bruce Golding told him, anyway.
He doesn’t like running the 400
So what more is there to prove at the shorter sprints? A move up to the 400m might appear to be the logical next step for a man who, at 6 foot 5, seems tailor-made to be a one-lap runner. After 9.69 and 19.30, 42.5 seems sort of, well, possible?
“Don’t hold your breath,” says Bolt. He may have promised Cameron but there’s a reason why he specified six years before he’s going to be ready to take on the killer event- Bolt really doesn’t like the quarter mile.
“A lot of people keep suggesting I should be going up to 400,” he says. “I don’t think I’m going to be doing it anytime soon. I don’t want to say anything too much because my coach might hear and want me to run it. But anything is possible.”
Where Bolt’s concerned that’s certainly true. “You know at 16 he ran 45.35?” says Cameron, his eyes wide in memory.
“He doesn’t like running the 400, I know that, but when he gets tired of running 200s he’ll move up, for sure. He promised me. For now, he still wants to run faster in the sprints.”
So how will Cameron persuade him to take up the challenge? “It’ll be a question of his national pride,” says Cameron. “If he doesn’t see the 400 in Jamaica improving he will probably decide to move up himself. He will want to put us back on the map.
“We keep on doing badly in the 400 and sooner or later he’s going to realise that and he’s not going to like it. Then he’ll move up.”
Don’t say that he can’t do something… that’s when he will
He may only be 22, but it’s in the nature of the man, according to Cameron, that Bolt has such a sense of responsibility, despite his laid back approach to life. “He’s like that,” he says. “He likes a challenge.”
“I would advise people, don’t say that he can’t do something, because when you say that he can’t, that’s when he will. He’ll prove you wrong. That would be my advice to his opponents as well.
“I don’t know what’s in his mind now, I never ask him about that. But if he says he’s going to do something he will. I see him every day and watch his progress. Jamaica’s such a small place we are at the same track every single day.”
In some ways, Bolt’s been carrying the weight of his small Caribbean nation’s expectations for six years, since he was, at 15, the star of the World Junior Championships in Kingston where thousands queued to watch him run, many clambering over the walls to get into the stadium, hundreds locked outside. Even at that age he was already at “world beating standard”, as one Jamaican official put it.
“Everybody knew we had seen the future,” says the official. “But the country had patience.”
Bolt was allowed time to develop in his own way. Cameron would’ve liked him to be a 400m runner there and then, but he knew that Bolt had to be allowed to do the things he wanted. “He could do any event and I knew that he didn’t like to train for 400s,” says Cameron. “I believe the 100 is his best event. But he believes the 200 is, so who am I to say? He’s the one who’s running it.”
“The 200 means more to me than the 100,” confirms Bolt. “This World record means a lot to me. I’ve been dreaming of it since I was knee high. It’s been my love since I was 15, so it’s close to my heart.”
Deadly combination
Just five hours before the men’s 200 final, Michael Johnson himself had commented that Bolt didn’t have the speed endurance to break his 12-year-old record. “He has incredible leg speed and a long stride,” said Johnson. “That combination is deadly.
“But the 200m has another element which is speed endurance. What we don’t know is how long he can hold that speed. I don’t think his training at the moment has enough endurance for that. But eventually it will have and then I will be ready to kiss my record goodbye.”
ELITETRACK Founder
And the rest of that article:
“Eventually” turned out a good deal sooner than Johnson expected. But perhaps what the former World record holder didn’t know is that Bolt already trains for the 400m as part of his preparations in the early part of the season.
“At first he trains like a quarter miler,” says Cameron when asked whether he was surprised by what he’d seen. “He trained like a 400m runner because he was training for the 200. Then in the pre-competition period he started sprinting to do the 100s. He’s well prepared.
“So it wasn’t surprising to me that he broke the record because if he can run 9.69 when he wasn’t even running his best event- you can imagine what’s he going to do running top notch in his favourite distance.”
Even Bolt was a bit surprised, however. “I had an idea I could go fast,” he says. “I’ve been runing fast all season and shutting down. But to do that after seven rounds is a bit surprising. But I told myself, ‘If you’re going to do it, do it here.'”
We may have to wait another six years to see him do it in the 400, but Bolt may not have finished redefining the shorter sprints yet.
“He still wants to run faster in the sprints,” says Cameron when asked how low he thinks Bolt can go. “It depends on how much he runs, how many races. The thing is, I don’t know with Bolt, Bolt is different.
“I mean, I used to run and I’ve seen many great athletes, but I’ve never seen anything like that.”
In 1996, many were saying the same about Johnson. In 2018, they could be saying it again. Remember the date.
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German sprinter casts doubt on Bolt’s gold win
German sprinter Tobias Unger (29) called the Olympic 100m men’s final a “farce” and cast doubt on the legitimacy of superstar Usain Bolt’s win.
Unger voiced his complaints about the Jamaican sprinter to BILD sport, saying: “Bolt didn’t even warm up for the semi final. He showed up in shorts and jogging shoes, did his pickups and practice starts, put on his spikes and then ran the 100m in 9.92 seconds.
“Bolt ran a time of 9.8 seconds in May and again at the end of September. He showed no tiredness during training,” an annoyed Unger added.
“They do whatever they want on their island. Nothing happens to them. I’m the only one here at the Olympics who is registering with the doping controllers.”
Bolt apparently didn’t even know how to fill out the doping forms. The American sprinters’ coaches actually laughed when they heard about German doping controls.
Unger, who was cut in the semi-finals, threatened to quit: “I just don’t have the desire anymore.”
ELITETRACK Founder
American sprint coaches laughed when they heard about German doping controls? They mean Jamaican doping controls?
Looks like America’s doping controls are on the up and up because we are sucking much more than usual.
Ya WTF? seriously we suck.
I find it really hard to believe Usain Bolt is legit, if you look at it, it doesnt seem right.
https://www.guardian.co.uk/sport/2008/aug/18/olympics2008.olympicsathletics
Olympics: Why a negative will be a massive positive
The Bird’s Nest held its breath on Saturday as Usain Bolt rewrote the sprinting rule-book and broke his own world record in the 100m final, but only when his samples have been returned marked “negative” from the laboratory to which they were taken under armed guard will anyone exhale with relief.
No one among the 91,000 in the stadium who watched the Jamaican streak into history wants to believe that what they saw was anything other than the product of precocious talent and hard work. But in a Games that has seen fake fans, fake singers and fake fireworks, questions will be asked as to whether the most eye-catching results are also artificially enhanced.
The sprinter was not the only athlete labouring under the weight of scepticism at the weekend. The world’s best swimmers – including the double gold medallist Rebecca Adlington, who broke one of 24 world records to fall in the pool – and Britain’s cyclists also find themselves facing cynicism. Drugs have corroded confidence to the point that exceptional athletes, the very people the Olympics are intended to celebrate, now face the impossible task of proving a negative to put themselves beyond suspicion.
Bolt is unquestionably blessed with lavish talent and has shown consistent progression in performance since he emerged as a teenage sensation in 2001. His curse is to excel in a discipline that has been so stripped of credibility by his predecessors. His lightning dash comes 20 years after the most notorious doper of all, Ben Johnson, produced an equally devastating performance in Seoul only to be revealed as a cheat within days. Linford Christie, the 1992 champion, tested positive for steroids at the end of his career and Justin Gatlin, the man Bolt deposed as Olympic champion, was subsequently banned. Sydney’s sprint-double champion Marion Jones, meanwhile, is watching the Beijing Games from jail as a result of her association with the Balco laboratory.
Before the Games began John Fahey, president of the World Anti-Doping Agency (Wada), said that Beijing needed a clean 100m to restore faith in the sport. If Bolt’s sample is clean the IOC will know before he resumes his assault on the sprint double today in the first round of the 200m. Negative samples go unannounced and positives take up to 72 hours to be processed, so no news is good news.
Despite the weight of cynicism that attaches itself to sprinters, there are several reasons to have faith in what we saw on Saturday. Experienced doping observers apply four tests to establish suspicion; what the athlete does, what they say, who they associate with and their testing history. On these counts Bolt looks good enough to be true.
He has already been tested at least six times since he arrived in China, and had he failed any of these we would already know. The Jamaican team have been visited 36 times by anti-doping officials in what looks like a targeted operation aimed at sprinting’s most progressive nation. Jamaican Olympic Association officials say that 20 of their athletes have been tested multiple times, including Asafa Powell.
Secondly, he has been on a consistent performance curve since 2001 when he won his high school 200m in 22.04sec aged 14 and was adopted into Jamaica’s talent development programme. Sudden leaps and late-career advancement are viewed as suspicious, but Bolt has demonstrated only consistent brilliance in his career, albeit in the 200m rather than the shorter distance. Training methods for the two disciplines are broadly the same so the advances are informative.
Neither has Bolt’s progress been accompanied by the whiff of impropriety as the IAAF monitors its leading athletes regularly and Bolt has been tested regularly. Finally, his feat received only praise from the athletes he left trailing in his wake. There was no one aiming daggers at him as Carl Lewis did at Johnson in 1988, instead there were only compliments. Everyone who was gripped on Saturday will hope it stays that way.
Beijing, China – Note the date now- 2014: men’s 400m, Usain Bolt, 42.5.
No, not the ‘Lightening’ man’s own prediction- Bolt avoids talk of the 400 as much as possible- but as firm an answer to a journalist’s query as you’re ever likely to hear from an athletics coach.
Not just any coach, either, but Bert Cameron, the first World 400m champion from the World Championships in Helsinki back in 1983. Cameron is now Jamaica’snational 400m coach and a man who watches Bolt train virtually everyday.
How does he know the date? “He promised me,” says Cameron. “He will do it and he promised it’ll be six years from now.” And how fast will he go? “42.5,” says Cameron without the merest hesitation.
Five days ago, if anyone had made such a suggestion it would have been treated as a joke. But five days ago the world of men’s sprinting was on a different planet, one a whole lot closer to the normal orbit of track and field that most of us have come to understand.
In Beijing, Lightening Bolt has struck twice in five days to blow the men’s sprints into a whole different stratosphere. “It blew my mind and blew the world’s mind,” as Bolt himself said after becoming the first man since Carl Lewis in 1984 to win the Olympic sprint double and the first man ever to do so with two world records. Only in 1968, when Jim Hines won the 100 and Tommie Smith the 200, and 1996 when Donovan Bailey took the 100m and Michael Johnson, the 200, have both records gone at the same Olympics.
“I’ve written history pretty much,” as Bolt puts it with a characteristic shrug. Back home in Jamaica, he tells us, “everywhere is pretty much blocked off”. That’s what the Jamaican Prime Minister Bruce Golding told him, anyway.
He doesn’t like running the 400
So what more is there to prove at the shorter sprints? A move up to the 400m might appear to be the logical next step for a man who, at 6 foot 5, seems tailor-made to be a one-lap runner. After 9.69 and 19.30, 42.5 seems sort of, well, possible?
“Don’t hold your breath,” says Bolt. He may have promised Cameron but there’s a reason why he specified six years before he’s going to be ready to take on the killer event- Bolt really doesn’t like the quarter mile.
“A lot of people keep suggesting I should be going up to 400,” he says. “I don’t think I’m going to be doing it anytime soon. I don’t want to say anything too much because my coach might hear and want me to run it. But anything is possible.”
Where Bolt’s concerned that’s certainly true. “You know at 16 he ran 45.35?” says Cameron, his eyes wide in memory.
“He doesn’t like running the 400, I know that, but when he gets tired of running 200s he’ll move up, for sure. He promised me. For now, he still wants to run faster in the sprints.”
So how will Cameron persuade him to take up the challenge? “It’ll be a question of his national pride,” says Cameron. “If he doesn’t see the 400 in Jamaica improving he will probably decide to move up himself. He will want to put us back on the map.
“We keep on doing badly in the 400 and sooner or later he’s going to realise that and he’s not going to like it. Then he’ll move up.”
Don’t say that he can’t do something… that’s when he will
He may only be 22, but it’s in the nature of the man, according to Cameron, that Bolt has such a sense of responsibility, despite his laid back approach to life. “He’s like that,” he says. “He likes a challenge.”
“I would advise people, don’t say that he can’t do something, because when you say that he can’t, that’s when he will. He’ll prove you wrong. That would be my advice to his opponents as well.
“I don’t know what’s in his mind now, I never ask him about that. But if he says he’s going to do something he will. I see him every day and watch his progress. Jamaica’s such a small place we are at the same track every single day.”
In some ways, Bolt’s been carrying the weight of his small Caribbean nation’s expectations for six years, since he was, at 15, the star of the World Junior Championships in Kingston where thousands queued to watch him run, many clambering over the walls to get into the stadium, hundreds locked outside. Even at that age he was already at “world beating standard”, as one Jamaican official put it.
“Everybody knew we had seen the future,” says the official. “But the country had patience.”
Bolt was allowed time to develop in his own way. Cameron would’ve liked him to be a 400m runner there and then, but he knew that Bolt had to be allowed to do the things he wanted. “He could do any event and I knew that he didn’t like to train for 400s,” says Cameron. “I believe the 100 is his best event. But he believes the 200 is, so who am I to say? He’s the one who’s running it.”
“The 200 means more to me than the 100,” confirms Bolt. “This World record means a lot to me. I’ve been dreaming of it since I was knee high. It’s been my love since I was 15, so it’s close to my heart.”
Deadly combination
Just five hours before the men’s 200 final, Michael Johnson himself had commented that Bolt didn’t have the speed endurance to break his 12-year-old record. “He has incredible leg speed and a long stride,” said Johnson. “That combination is deadly.
“But the 200m has another element which is speed endurance. What we don’t know is how long he can hold that speed. I don’t think his training at the moment has enough endurance for that. But eventually it will have and then I will be ready to kiss my record goodbye.”
“Eventually” turned out a good deal sooner than Johnson expected. But perhaps what the former World record holder didn’t know is that Bolt already trains for the 400m as part of his preparations in the early part of the season.
“At first he trains like a quarter miler,” says Cameron when asked whether he was surprised by what he’d seen. “He trained like a 400m runner because he was training for the 200. Then in the pre-competition period he started sprinting to do the 100s. He’s well prepared.
“So it wasn’t surprising to me that he broke the record because if he can run 9.69 when he wasn’t even running his best event- you can imagine what’s he going to do running top notch in his favourite distance.”
Even Bolt was a bit surprised, however. “I had an idea I could go fast,” he says. “I’ve been runing fast all season and shutting down. But to do that after seven rounds is a bit surprising. But I told myself, ‘If you’re going to do it, do it here.'”
We may have to wait another six years to see him do it in the 400, but Bolt may not have finished redefining the shorter sprints yet.
“He still wants to run faster in the sprints,” says Cameron when asked how low he thinks Bolt can go. “It depends on how much he runs, how many races. The thing is, I don’t know with Bolt, Bolt is different.
“I mean, I used to run and I’ve seen many great athletes, but I’ve never seen anything like that.”
In 1996, many were saying the same about Johnson. In 2018, they could be saying it again. Remember the date.
Matthew Brown for the IAAF
ELITETRACK Founder
Usain Bolt won the 100 meters because of his speed endurance. Speedendurance.com had nothing to do with his victory except the fact that we were cheering for him.
I’ve said this all along, unless you are running a 40 yard dash or 50 meter sprint, sprinting the 100, 200, or 400 meters is all about speed endurance… reach your top speed, and maintain it. The winner of two athletes with the same top end speed will be the one who decelerates the least.
Most world class 100 meter men reach their top speed within 50-60 meters. Women reach their top end speed a bit earlier, so more of their race is speed endurance.
I have collected 10 meter segment splits for the last 20 years. And yes, I am including Ben Johnson and Tim Montgomery because they still ran those times, supplementation included. I am looking for relative comparisons. RT = reaction time
Ben Johnson-Carl Lewis-Maurice Green-Tim Montgomery-Asafa Powell-Usain Bolt-100-meter-splits
Until Bolt came along, 0.83 was the fastest top end speed recorded. 0.83 seconds per 10 meters translates to 12 meters per second (m/s) or almost 27 miles per hour (mph) or 43 kilometers per hour (kph).
Ben Johnson’s time of 9.79 could be extrapolated at 9.74 or 9.72 if he didn’t slow down and celebrate, assuming 0.85 seconds for the last 20 meters.
If you extrapolate Usain Bolt’s last 10 meter segment, without the chest thumping, it would be fair to say he would have ran 0.84 or 0.85 seconds, making his 100m World Record 9.63 or 9.64.
Also, a 9.64 doubled plus or minus +/- 0.2 seconds = 19.28 for 200 meters, which is the pretty close to his 19.30 World Record.
It is a known fact that Bolt (or his coach) was concentrating his efforts in the 200 and 400 meters over the past few years. He only took the 100 meters seriously this year, which is a scary thought. 200/400 training involves 3 main components: speed, speed endurance, and special endurance.
Did Asafa Powell Choke again?
Asafa Powell came 5th in Athens 2004 despite being one of the favorites. In Beijing 2008, he came 5th again. He ran 9.91 in the semi-final, and 9.95 in the Finals.
Maybe his body or mind is just not suited for multiple rounds in a Championship environment.
But choke? I don’t like the term “choke”. If that term is valid, then even I’ve choked before.
My good friend David Horne has one of the best books on Sports Psychology and digs deep into the Athlete’s mind.
I’ll critique Tyson Gay on the next Newsletter.
Enjoy the rest of the Olympics!
Jimson Lee
I agree with premium
even though some might say “choke”
I think that with his pectoral injury kept him away from the track for so long that his overall gpp practically diminished. if asafa powell could run a 100m more than 3 times I bet he would’ve dropped back into the 9.7’s.
still, no challenging bolt.
9.63-9.65?
although I hardly believe that his 0.30+ second drop had to do entirely with him switching to sprint training, I would believe that he may be the first person ever to get into the 9.5’s in the coming years. after all, at 22 asafa powell was running 9.90 and 3 years later he was running 9.74.
oh and that jamaican was seriously moving in the 200m.
that’s all I have to say. lol
How Fast Can Humans Go?
Friday, Aug. 22, 2008 By DEIRDRE VAN DYK
Usain Bolt may have just broken the human speed limit. Last week, he took two gold medals in the Olympic 100m, shattering his own world record with a time of 9.69 secs., and the 200m with a time of 19.3 secs., obliterating by two-hundredths of a second the long-standing world record Michael Johnson set at the Atlanta Games in 1996.
Bolt is an exciting showman and, clearly, a gifted runner, but is he an inimitable oddity, or proof that athletes are simply getting faster overall? World speed records have fallen like dominoes at these Olympic Games (in swimming too, you may have heard), and experts think humans can get faster still. Half a century or ago or so, we didn’t believe a human could run a 4-min. mile – until Roger Bannister proved us wrong in 1954 when he ran it in 3 mins. 59.4 secs. At the 1936 Games in Berlin, sprinter Jesse Owens won the 100m gold with a blistering time of 10.3 secs – today, that’s par for junior level speed athletes. We now have better equipment, better training and improved nutrition, along with faster tracks and, crucially, a lot more endorsement money to be made by running as fast as possible, and that’s uncovered a deeper pool of better runners than ever before.
Elite sprinters are not, however, simply improved versions of the average Sunday runner. They are physiologically different. For example, a typical human has in his skeletal muscles an equal balance of “fast-twitch” muscle fibers (quick contracting, easily fatigued muscle tissue that generates high power) and “slow-twitch” fibers (the muscle mass that uses oxygen – aerobic, rather than anaerobic), on which endurance runners rely. Slow-twitch muscle can contract for long periods of time with less fatigue, which helps some distance athletes run up to 60 mi. per day. Sprinters legs are genetically blessed with 70% fast-twitch and 30% slow-twitch muscles, which is what allows them to push off so fast and so powerfully, according to Scott Trappe, who heads the human performance laboratory at Indiana’s Ball State University and has studied sprinters’ muscles. But elite sprinters like Bolt may have even more of something that other world-class sprinters don’t: superfast-twich muscles, which perform at double the rate of regular fast-twitch muscles, creating even more force. Trappe says regular folks have 1% to 2% superfast-twitch skeletal muscle mass, but in a sprinter like Bolt, that figure may be up to 25%.
That helps explain why Bolt’s legs move fast enough to be a blur. When people run, they are essentially bouncing though the air from one leg to another, says Daniel Lieberman, a professor of biological anthropology at Harvard University who studies how and why the human body looks and works as it does. What determines how fast people go is their stride length – a function of how long the legs are, how powerfully they push off into a stride and how far forward the body jumps – and their stride rate, which is how fast they can propel their legs forward. While great endurance runners, get their speed from long strides, sprinters get much of their speed from a fast stride rate – and from raw power. They hit the ground harder, relative to their body weight, than marathoners.
It appears that Bolt takes advantage of a little of both. At 6 ft. 5 in., he’s nearly half a foot taller than many other gold-medal sprinters; compared to his Olympic competition, Bolt’s step was 1 ft. longer, allowing him to cover 100m in 41 steps. The other athletes needed, on average, 47. That helps, considering Bolt isn’t the best starter – he’s relatively slower off the block, but he separates himself at the end of the race, when “he’s still able to turn his legs over fast enough with high power,” says Ed Coyle at the University of Texas’s Human Performance Laboratory. “He overcomes his average start and just doesn’t slow down, as others do, in the last 30 to 40 meters. He’s able to relax and coordinate his longer legs.”
Looking forward, “no one can really know exactly how fast a human may be able to run,” says Dennis Bramble, professor of biology at the University of Utah. Certainly, runners have been getting faster, as far as we know, but as Peter Weyand, an expert in biomechanics at Southern Methodist University, points out, our history of recorded time in sprints is relatively brief. “We have no way of knowing if humans might not have been even faster centuries or millennia ago,” he says.
“Modern sprinters seem to be operating close to the limits of the human body,” says Bramble. “Still, when someone who is not built like a classic sprinter – [Bolt is] taller and leaner than most – smashes the world record while making it look easy, maybe all bets should be off.”
ELITETRACK Founder
got this off a message board
JAMAICA 4x100m splits
USATF High Performance registered split analysis:
Nesta Carter – 10.41
Michael Frater – 9.01
Usain Bolt – 8.98
Asafa Powelll – 8.70
and a comparisson of previous world record relay splits
Can someone explain to me how relay splits are obtained (officially)? What would happen if Asafa got the baton at the start of the zone vs the end of the zone? Would the split show up as the same? Are the splits just the baton splits?
They are when the baton passes the 100m mark of the zone. Also, I’d add that I believe the USATF splits from Beijing were from only 1 camera (as opposed to the 8 we use at National Championships) so the splits should probably be taken as +/- 0.04 seconds.
ELITETRACK Founder
That’s what I thought. I was arguing with some people that Asafa actually split like low 8.6 time from when his body crossed the 100m start mark to the finish and I said he would WR in Rieti again given good conditions (and given WR stays at 9.69). Everyone kept barking 8.7+ which is irrelevant in my mind trying to predict his dominance because that is the baton time not A-Train time.
Edit: Actually it will go something like this. Some random poster will show up saying “Asafa will visit my village soon!”. Then he will WR. Then no one will believe it. Then a youtube clip will show up “Asafa 9.69 RECORD DEL MUNDO!!!!”. Then wcsn will show it on 1hr delay and Carol Lewis will be like “Asafa broke the wr, yay.”
anyone got that 9.92 race from beijing on video?
anyone got that 9.92 race from beijing on video?
wonderful…thanks mate…
[b]Usain Bolt won the 100 meters because of his speed endurance.[/b] Speedendurance.com had nothing to do with his victory except the fact that we were cheering for him.
I’ve said this all along, unless you are running a 40 yard dash or 50 meter sprint, sprinting the 100, 200, or 400 meters is all about speed endurance… reach your top speed, and maintain it. The winner of two athletes with the same top end speed will be the one who decelerates the least.
Most world class 100 meter men reach their top speed within 50-60 meters. Women reach their top end speed a bit earlier, so more of their race is speed endurance.
I have collected 10 meter segment splits for the last 20 years. And yes, I am including Ben Johnson and Tim Montgomery because they still ran those times, supplementation included. I am looking for relative comparisons. RT = reaction time
Ben Johnson-Carl Lewis-Maurice Green-Tim Montgomery-Asafa Powell-Usain Bolt-100-meter-splits
[img]https://speedendurance.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2008/08/100-meter-splits.jpg[/img]
[b]Until Bolt came along, 0.83 was the fastest top end speed recorded. 0.83 seconds per 10 meters translates to 12 meters per second (m/s) or almost 27 miles per hour (mph) or 43 kilometers per hour (kph).[/b]
Ben Johnson’s time of 9.79 could be extrapolated at 9.74 or 9.72 if he didn’t slow down and celebrate, assuming 0.85 seconds for the last 20 meters.
If you extrapolate Usain Bolt’s last 10 meter segment, without the chest thumping, it would be[b] fair to say he would have ran 0.84 or 0.85 seconds, making his 100m World Record 9.63 or 9.64.[/b]
[b]Also, a 9.64 doubled plus or minus +/- 0.2 seconds = 19.28 for 200 meters, which is the pretty close to his 19.30 World Record.[/b]
It is a known fact that Bolt (or his coach) was concentrating his efforts in the 200 and 400 meters over the past few years. He only took the 100 meters seriously this year, which is a scary thought. 200/400 training involves 3 main components: speed, speed endurance, and special endurance.
Did Asafa Powell Choke again?
Asafa Powell came 5th in Athens 2004 despite being one of the favorites. In Beijing 2008, he came 5th again. He ran 9.91 in the semi-final, and 9.95 in the Finals.
Maybe his body or mind is just not suited for multiple rounds in a Championship environment.
But choke? I don’t like the term “choke”. If that term is valid, then even I’ve choked before.
My good friend David Horne has one of the best books on Sports Psychology and digs deep into the Athlete’s mind.
I’ll critique Tyson Gay on the next Newsletter.
Enjoy the rest of the Olympics!
Jimson Lee
I’m sorry it’s not just speed endurance, it’s a combination of the acceleration, maximal race velocity, and then speed-endurance. His 10m segments .82s are the fastest ones recorded in a non wind aided race and that’s the reason he ran faster than anyone else. That’s a faster velocity than anyone else and it’s not the longest string of same times (+/- .01s) ever those belongs to known dopers like Gatlin and Montgomery who carried that velocity to over 5 10m segments. In fact all known dopers have carried Max V longer than 3 segments of the 100m race since Ben Johnson’s race. So, I am more inclined to think it’s a new pharmaceutical cocktail and not speed endurance and if it’s not pharmaceuticals it’s definitely acceleration and max V based development. A greater maximal velocity means you are spending a greater percentage of time in the air and thus through less friction able to hold velocity longer.
[b][url=https://www.time.com/time/health/article/0,8599,1835420,00.html]How Fast Can Humans Go?[/url][/b]
Friday, Aug. 22, 2008 By DEIRDRE VAN DYK!– cut –!
Elite sprinters are not, however, simply improved versions of the average Sunday runner. They are physiologically different. For example, a typical human has in his skeletal muscles an equal balance of “fast-twitch” muscle fibers (quick contracting, easily fatigued muscle tissue that generates high power) and “slow-twitch” fibers (the muscle mass that uses oxygen – aerobic, rather than anaerobic), on which endurance runners rely. Slow-twitch muscle can contract for long periods of time with less fatigue, which helps some distance athletes run up to 60 mi. per day. Sprinters legs are genetically blessed with 70% fast-twitch and 30% slow-twitch muscles, which is what allows them to push off so fast and so powerfully, according to Scott Trappe, who heads the human performance laboratory at Indiana’s Ball State University and has studied sprinters’ muscles. [b]But elite sprinters like Bolt may have even more of something that other world-class sprinters don’t: superfast-twich muscles, which perform at double the rate of regular fast-twitch muscles, creating even more force. Trappe says regular folks have 1% to 2% superfast-twitch skeletal muscle mass, but in a sprinter like Bolt, that figure may be up to 25%.[/b]
That helps explain why Bolt’s legs move fast enough to be a blur. When people run, they are essentially bouncing though the air from one leg to another, says Daniel Lieberman, a professor of biological anthropology at Harvard University who studies how and why the human body looks and works as it does. What determines how fast people go is their stride length – a function of how long the legs are, how powerfully they push off into a stride and how far forward the body jumps – and their stride rate, which is how fast they can propel their legs forward. [b]While great endurance runners, get their speed from long strides, sprinters get much of their speed from a fast stride rate – and from raw power. They hit the ground harder, relative to their body weight, than marathoners.
[/b]
It appears that Bolt takes advantage of a little of both. At 6 ft. 5 in., he’s nearly half a foot taller than many other gold-medal sprinters; [b]compared to his Olympic competition, Bolt’s step was 1 ft. longer, allowing him to cover 100m in 41 steps. The other athletes needed, on average, 47.[/b] That helps, considering Bolt isn’t the best starter – he’s relatively slower off the block, but he separates himself at the end of the race, when “he’s still able to turn his legs over fast enough with high power,” says Ed Coyle at the University of Texas’s Human Performance Laboratory. “He overcomes his average start and just doesn’t slow down, as others do, in the last 30 to 40 meters. He’s able to relax and coordinate his longer legs.”Looking forward, “no one can really know exactly how fast a human may be able to run,” says Dennis Bramble, professor of biology at the University of Utah. Certainly, runners have been getting faster, as far as we know, but as Peter Weyand, an expert in biomechanics at Southern Methodist University, points out, our history of recorded time in sprints is relatively brief. “We have no way of knowing if humans might not have been even faster centuries or millennia ago,” he says.
[b]“Modern sprinters seem to be operating close to the limits of the human body,” says Bramble. “Still, when someone who is not built like a classic sprinter – [Bolt is] taller and leaner than most – smashes the world record while making it look easy, maybe all bets should be off.”[/b]
Those are some powerhouse names in exercise science, but I have to say WTF, think before you speak to a reporter.
Bolt’s 41 steps in 9.69s is only a pedestrian like 4.23 steps per second. His stride is an unbelievable 2.43m per step. Analyze the data first. Even though we don’t have data on the range of motion of the stride that Bolt run’s with about the hip. It looks larger than most, but he doesn’t have as much going on the backside as others suggesting his angular velocity is the same or less as other elite sprinters. If someone who runs 9.85s in 45 steps, they have an average step rate of 4.56 steps per second with a step time of .219s of which .06-08s is step time giving a runner a recovery time of .139-.159s while for Bolt if he has a step time of .236s he will have a recovery time of .166-.186s with step times of .05-.07 seconds. If 9.85s sprinter had an average angular velocity about the hip of 1295 deg/sec for a combined 110 degrees from end ground contact to highest knee lift and 70 from highest knee lift to start of ground contact for 180 degrees of ROM, then Bolt would have to move his legs through 215 total degrees of ROM, that’s about 125 to about 90. I don’t Bolt has a slightly greater ROM than his counterparts, but I doubt it’s 20% larger, suggesting his legs movement would be slower.
Also, Bolt’s start is as good if not better accounting for reaction time than anyone else. So there’s a fallacy in Dr. Ed Coyle’s arguments. He’s able to maintain speed longer because increased velocity is about decreasing friction on the ground which is attained by spending a greater percentage of time in the air from longer strides. This in turn should mean the sprinter needs enhanced elastic qualities and not necessarily muscular contraction qualities as Dr. Trappe and other point out.
From the previous paragraphs we see how Bolt would probably have a greater ROM and a longer step, a slower step rate, his legs are also moving slower in comparison to his competitors with respect to angular velocity and I am going to make the assumption he spends a greater percentage of his race in the air. One accelerates by increasing both stride rate and stride length as well as the ROM about the hip in the first phase of acceleration (rapid acceleration 0-30m), then once maximal stride rate is reached it drops slightly and this starts the second phase of acceleration (slow phase or transition phase 30-~60m) where ROM and stride length are both increasing until Max V. is reached. Reaching .82s per 10m and maintaining such velocity requires one to have greater elastic qualities and decreased friction (braking) impulses from ground contact which fit the description of increased ROM and stride length with shorter gct’s and not increased step rate and not greater propulsive power from muscles which would require longer ground contact times at maximal velocity, but would help him in the acceleration phase.
So my question to the Exercise Scientists who want to be quoted are as follows:
1. What is Bolt’s angular velocity from end of ground contact to beginning of ground contact on each step compared to his next 3 closest competitors?
2. What is the ROM the Hip goes through for Bolt during each step from end of ground contact to beginning of ground contact. What is the ROM during contact? What are they for his next 3 closest competitors?
3. What are Bolt’s ground contact times on each step compared to his next 3 closest competitors? The cumulative of this give’s us total flight time as well. Is it possible he has a longer ground contact, but shorter overall flight time?
4. Take a muscle biopsy and confirm this super fast twitch muscle in Bolt. Does it have a genetic component? If so, why do most sprinters of West African origins fail to break 11.0s in the 100m dash at the scholastic level? Why not a tendon biopsy?
[quote author="mortac8" date="1220232726"]Can someone explain to me how relay splits are obtained (officially)? What would happen if Asafa got the baton at the start of the zone vs the end of the zone? Would the split show up as the same? Are the splits just the baton splits?
They are when the baton passes the 100m mark of the zone. Also, I’d add that I believe the USATF splits from Beijing were from only 1 camera (as opposed to the 8 we use at National Championships) so the splits should probably be taken as +/- 0.04 seconds.[/quote]
Were the OT sprint splits in Eugene ever published or can they be accessed online?
Those are some powerhouse names in exercise science, but I have to say WTF, think before you speak to a reporter.
I actually thought the same exact thing. Weyand in particular has stated some things that have been very curious in the last year. In a recent news article he comes right out and says that humans are capable of running as fast as cheetahs because we are made up of the same muscles and tendons (i.e. 6 seconds for 100m). I suppose it could have been taken out of context but it sure didn’t seem like it. On top of that, he was also one of the lead researchers who ‘proved’ that Oscar Pistorious’ blades didn’t give him an advantage over his able-bodied counterparts.
ELITETRACK Founder
Were the OT sprint splits in Eugene ever published or can they be accessed online?
I actually uploaded it to the site 2 months ago but never finished the linking setup. I’ll do it tomorrow.
ELITETRACK Founder
[color=blue]Elite sprinters are not, however, simply improved versions of the average Sunday runner. They are physiologically different. For example, a typical human has in his skeletal muscles an equal balance of “fast-twitch” muscle fibers (quick contracting, easily fatigued muscle tissue that generates high power) and “slow-twitch” fibers (the muscle mass that uses oxygen – aerobic, rather than anaerobic), on which endurance runners rely. Slow-twitch muscle can contract for long periods of time with less fatigue, which helps some distance athletes run up to 60 mi. per day. Sprinters legs are genetically blessed with 70% fast-twitch and 30% slow-twitch muscles, which is what allows them to push off so fast and so powerfully, according to Scott Trappe, who heads the human performance laboratory at Indiana’s Ball State University and has studied sprinters’ muscles. But elite sprinters like Bolt may have even more of something that other world-class sprinters don’t: superfast-twich muscles, which perform at double the rate of regular fast-twitch muscles, creating even more force. Trappe says regular folks have 1% to 2% superfast-twitch skeletal muscle mass, but in a sprinter like Bolt, that figure may be up to 25%.
Reaching .82s per 10m and maintaining such velocity requires one to have greater elastic qualities and decreased friction (braking) impulses from ground contact which fit the description of increased ROM and stride length with shorter gct’s and not increased step rate and not greater propulsive power from muscles which would require longer ground contact times at maximal velocity, but would help him in the acceleration phase.
So my question to the Exercise Scientists who want to be quoted are as follows:
1. What is Bolt’s angular velocity from end of ground contact to beginning of ground contact on each step compared to his next 3 closest competitors?
2. What is the ROM the Hip goes through for Bolt during each step from end of ground contact to beginning of ground contact. What is the ROM during contact? What are they for his next 3 closest competitors?
3. What are Bolt’s ground contact times on each step compared to his next 3 closest competitors? The cumulative of this give’s us total flight time as well. Is it possible he has a longer ground contact, but shorter overall flight time?
4. Take a muscle biopsy and confirm this super fast twitch muscle in Bolt. Does it have a genetic component? If so, why do most sprinters of West African origins fail to break 11.0s in the 100m dash at the scholastic level? Why not a tendon biopsy? [/color]
I’m not going to answer all these as I would need a few thousand pages.
Super fast-twitch fibres? Give me a break. Biopsies have been carried out over decades now and guys like Mero would have found something significant years ago. However, like any biological stimulus, practice of contracting the muscles faster will lead to adaptation and possibly super faster twitching.
Agree with dbrande I do, tendon biopsies will reveal visual changes although a better test would be (provided it is an analysis of before training protocol and after)of the contribution by the tendon and muscle complex to force at a particular speed of contraction.
Ground contact time? Right on the money. Analyse all the sprinters in every race and matched for height and leg length the ones that continue to reduce their ground contact time as the race progresses are the fastest ones.
Hip ROM? Analyse carefully and tell me whether you see Usain’s thigh pass beyond the line of the body at top speed. Also check out Asafa during any world record performance and compare it to his “unsuccessful” bids to win World Championships and Olympic finals and tell me whether he extends his thigh beyond the line of the body at top speed.In time you’ll find that the new breed of champion sprinters are producing greater forces in the traditionally known braking phases of sprinting. Incidentally, Gatlin and Flo-Jo also had this particular skill which can be attributed purely to skill alone.
Check it out.
video? I can’t see it without visual contrast.
Quoting Jeremy Richmond, “…particular skill which can be attributed purely to skill alone” has me thinking about time management.
As coaches a skill is something we can actively do something about, or at least try to do something about so while I find all of the investigations and discussions about those investigations into things like “super fast twitch muscle” very interesting, it does present those of us who work with everyone but the most elite athletes a bit of a dilemma related to V.Gambetta’s blog article about how much he reads etc.
What also concerns me, as Mr. Gambetta mentions, is separating the wheat from the chaff. While knowing about Usain Bolt in great detail is interesting how much has value for me, unless research into an individual refutes what has been taken as gospel.
I guess what I am asking is, ‘Is it possible that those who are at the highest level of sprinting, currently say Bolt and Powell (if for no other reason than some easily accessible information on him, the NHK “special”, exists) have just developed a teachable skill or intuitively know the same skill, to a higher degree than anyone else?’
Since if that is the case, as a coach I need to spend time improving my teaching skills more than I need to spend time gaining intimate physiological knowledge of a World Record holder.
As an aside, I have become more and more impressed with Walter Dix both as the Olympics went on and in subsequent races elsewhere.
Quoting Jeremy Richmond, “…particular skill which can be attributed purely to skill alone” has me thinking about time management.
As coaches a skill is something we can actively do something about, or at least try to do something about so while I find all of the investigations and discussions about those investigations into things like “super fast twitch muscle” very interesting, it does present those of us who work with everyone but the most elite athletes a bit of a dilemma related to V.Gambetta’s blog article about how much he reads etc.What also concerns me, as Mr. Gambetta mentions, is separating the wheat from the chaff. While knowing about Usain Bolt in great detail is interesting how much has value for me, unless research into an individual refutes what has been taken as gospel.
I guess what I am asking is, ‘Is it possible that those who are at the highest level of sprinting, currently say Bolt and Powell (if for no other reason than some easily accessible information on him, the NHK “special”, exists) have just developed a teachable skill or intuitively know the same skill, to a higher degree than anyone else?’
Since if that is the case, as a coach I need to spend time improving my teaching skills more than I need to spend time gaining intimate physiological knowledge of a World Record holder.As an aside, I have become more and more impressed with Walter Dix both as the Olympics went on and in subsequent races elsewhere.
As a coach you should improve your teaching/coaching skills and learn more about the events you teach/coach. The two go hand in hand. What’s at issue here is the fallacy of turnover (stride rate) as being the major limiting factor in sprinting ability. News article’s such as this one reach more coaches than current research does and for a coach without much a background in reading research they can only take into account what they understand to apply it successfully. I could sit around and put together a computer model of what I presented about Bolt’s data with other sprinters where I have tape of 100m dash and have the output of such a model show stride length/leg stiffness/gct/flight time are the major limiting factors of sprinting ability over a certain distance. However, most sprint coaches or track coaches wouldn’t be able to make head nor tails of it and some would even call it voodoo (“since when does a computer run a race.”).
A coach should be able to take some volume of research, reviews, and applied science articles, interpret it, condense it, and apply it by creating training plans and to identify strengths and weaknesses of individual athletes and helping them overcome deficiencies and highlighting strengths which greats a better environment for skill acquisition.
Unfortunately, we don’t have a ton of data on the progression and development of skills for age-group athletes in track and field. Therefore we must take the “Model” (best performances) and build our athletes towards these models.
What is noticeable watching Bolt´s videos is that he triple extends more with his right leg than with his left one, thus being the hip rom of the latter reduced. Asafa has limited hip rom, his leg isn´t floating behind him, it moves forward right after contact. Borzov had the very same technique.
Borzov? If you mean Borzov from a long long time ago then you must have a fair bit of knowledge. I’m not saying that to boost my argument regarding hip ROM, but it is more interesting because I was wondering whether they ran like that to be fast or they ran like that because they were faster then normal. Borzov did not have as fast a top speed as Usain and Asafa (please correct me if I’m wrong) so this could suggest that running with this technique is a faster way to run for each individual.
Whilst we are talking Borzov, I wonder what his training program comprised of as he favored plyometrics to weights. Is there a way to train for this running technique or does it come naturally to some?
Furthermore, we are making this conclusions without comparison to when these guys did not run so fast and comparison to the others in the same race so maybe it is not a factor. We probably need more conclusive evidence although experimenting on myself I would say it feels faster. Interesting though that both Usain and Asafa would be similar in that regard and are metres better than the rest (if your methods of analysis are accurate).
[quote author="Price" date="1220343249"]
Were the OT sprint splits in Eugene ever published or can they be accessed online?
I actually uploaded it to the site 2 months ago but never finished the linking setup. I’ll do it tomorrow.[/quote]See HERE.
ELITETRACK Founder
Borzov? If you mean Borzov from a long long time ago then you must have a fair bit of knowledge. I’m not saying that to boost my argument regarding hip ROM, but it is more interesting because I was wondering whether they ran like that to be fast or they ran like that because they were faster then normal. Borzov did not have as fast a top speed as Usain and Asafa (please correct me if I’m wrong) so this could suggest that running with this technique is a faster way to run for each individual.
Whilst we are talking Borzov, I wonder what his training program comprised of as he favored plyometrics to weights. Is there a way to train for this running technique or does it come naturally to some?
Furthermore, we are making this conclusions without comparison to when these guys did not run so fast and comparison to the others in the same race so maybe it is not a factor. We probably need more conclusive evidence although experimenting on myself I would say it feels faster. Interesting though that both Usain and Asafa would be similar in that regard and are metres better than the rest (if your methods of analysis are accurate).
Yes, I refer to Valeri Borzov. He also had a relatively shorter arm swing (or at least that´s what I remember if correctly). Here you can see this:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LtmTQvyzs0A
Borzov and his coach spent a lot of time working on technique. I believe that this technique may feel faster and even be faster because the push leg isn´t floating uselessly behind you after ground contact, thus allowing a better turn over rate without limiting ground forces. Thoughts?
Very good article on Bolt in the 100 meter finals.
[edit: article is now an attachment]
A corollary of this study is that a new world record of less than 9.5 seconds is within reach for Usain Bolt in the near future.
While this may be true and I hope that it happens…I hope Bolt didn’t ruin his chance to do it. As was stated earlier, despite his youth you never know if this situation/opportunity may ever present itself again.
I sure hope it does, seeing a 9.4x would be absolutely insane.
Borzov and his coach spent a lot of time working on technique. I believe that this technique may feel faster and even be faster because the push leg isn´t floating uselessly behind you after ground contact, thus allowing a better turn over rate without limiting ground forces. Thoughts?[/quote]
Hmmm. It is quite plausible that a better turn over rate may be the result but I’m not sure that is the greatest asset of this technique. I’m more inclined to think that when the thigh passes beyond the line of the body whilst still in contact with the ground, the additional force produced during this time is not worth the extra time spent on the ground. In other words the extra distance in stride length costs an extra 0.005 seconds per stride for argument sake. Interestingly I saw footage of the World championship which Tyson Gay won, where it seems he has a shortened thigh extension with his left leg at top speed as he passes Asafa. Unless my eyes are deceiving me the trend seems to be catching. Must be a sub 9.9 thing.
An opinion?
Regarding the role of symmetry on sprint performance, the phenomenon you’re speaking of is not new or novel. The only study I have ever seen on the matter actually found that the best sprinters are MORE asymmetrical. I’ll see if I can find it.
ELITETRACK Founder
https://myespn.go.com/s/conversations/show/story/3583692
This was on espn today, said Bolt would have run a 9.55. I really don’t see that being the case…
BOlT 400 in 2010
Usain wants all 3 records: https://thestar.com.my/sports/story.asp?file=/2008/12/17/sports/2823819&sec=sports
His coach had hinted at it but this is the first I’ve actually heard him confirm it. If he did that I’d say there would be no doubt he was the greatest sprinter of all time. Even if he retired immediately after getting it (in 2010).
ELITETRACK Founder
[url=https://blogs.reuters.com/china/2008/08/17/mcyam-meals-fuel-fastest-man/][b]McYam meals fuel fastest man[/b][/url]
Posted by: John ChalmersYesterday I took a mean swipe at sports journalists for the vacuous questions they put to athletes. I must tip my baseball cap today, however, to the reporter who asked Usain Bolt how the fastest man in the world had spent his day.
[b]It seems the Jamaican did a lot of time sleeping, and in between feasted on “nuggets”.[/b]
It took Bolt senior, speaking from Jamaica, to put the record straight – and perhaps deter millions of adoring young athletes from a lifetime of fast food. [b]His son’s gold medal, Wellesley Bolt said, was the result of a diet rich with the vegetable yam.[/b]
I can see it now: the McYam Happy Meal.
Maybe there is something special in root vegetables like yam. The secret of Samoan weighlifter Ele Opeloge’s strength, according to her coach, is a variety known as taro.
No doubt the majority of other Olympians in Beijing are eating an exemplary diet packed with fruit, vegetables, tasty tubers and other unprocessed food. Still, the McDonald’s restaurant at the athletes’ village has been doing brisk trade.
Take Jay Lyon, Canada’s best hope for an archery medal, who admits he is probably not the archetypal Olympian.
“I’m not much of an athlete – I eat a lot of McDonalds,” he said ahead of the Games. “I’m probably overweight for an athlete.” Lyon weighs 96 kilograms (212 pounds).
Lyon only has to stand behind a line and shoot some arrows, so “probably overweight” is probably okay.
But what about the athletes who have to break a sweat for their medals? No problem. Just ask U.S. sprint and long jump gold medallist Carl Lewis, who had this to say at a McDonald’s burger-making contest in Beijing: “I eat McDonald’s. I’ve always eaten McDonald’s. I even worked at McDonald’s. It was my first job.”
I wanted to post on this a while ago but something was wrong with my computer but about McDonald’s more or less when you travel to different country’s sometimes the only thing that is safe and mentally familiar to eat is McDonald’s. Think about it, in a far away place would you rather have rat soup or a hamburger and fry’s?
As far as training, according to Asafa Powell’s coach all of us have access to the training methods. We all read the same stuff there is no secret in that regard. However, what is interesting about the Jamaicans, that I came across, is the psychological aspect/training that is involved.
It would be like hitting oil if we found out what books they read on the psychological programing that is involved becasue here in America; and here it goes again, we don’t even address this at all.
Regardless, what I can deduce from Bolt, Powell and other Jamaicans is that they are mature, calm, and relaxed when on and off the track. Can we say the same for our athletes except for Mike Johnson?
[quote author="Mike Young" date="1219029277"][url=https://blogs.reuters.com/china/2008/08/17/mcyam-meals-fuel-fastest-man/][b]McYam meals fuel fastest man[/b][/url]
Posted by: John ChalmersYesterday I took a mean swipe at sports journalists for the vacuous questions they put to athletes. I must tip my baseball cap today, however, to the reporter who asked Usain Bolt how the fastest man in the world had spent his day.
[b]It seems the Jamaican did a lot of time sleeping, and in between feasted on “nuggets”.[/b]
It took Bolt senior, speaking from Jamaica, to put the record straight – and perhaps deter millions of adoring young athletes from a lifetime of fast food. [b]His son’s gold medal, Wellesley Bolt said, was the result of a diet rich with the vegetable yam.[/b]
I can see it now: the McYam Happy Meal.
Maybe there is something special in root vegetables like yam. The secret of Samoan weighlifter Ele Opeloge’s strength, according to her coach, is a variety known as taro.
No doubt the majority of other Olympians in Beijing are eating an exemplary diet packed with fruit, vegetables, tasty tubers and other unprocessed food. Still, the McDonald’s restaurant at the athletes’ village has been doing brisk trade.
Take Jay Lyon, Canada’s best hope for an archery medal, who admits he is probably not the archetypal Olympian.
“I’m not much of an athlete – I eat a lot of McDonalds,” he said ahead of the Games. “I’m probably overweight for an athlete.” Lyon weighs 96 kilograms (212 pounds).
Lyon only has to stand behind a line and shoot some arrows, so “probably overweight” is probably okay.
But what about the athletes who have to break a sweat for their medals? No problem. Just ask U.S. sprint and long jump gold medallist Carl Lewis, who had this to say at a McDonald’s burger-making contest in Beijing: “I eat McDonald’s. I’ve always eaten McDonald’s. I even worked at McDonald’s. It was my first job.”
I wanted to post on this a while ago but something was wrong with my computer but about McDonald’s more or less when you travel to different country’s sometimes the only thing that is safe and mentally familiar to eat is McDonald’s. Think about it, in a far away place would you rather have rat soup or a hamburger and fry’s?
As far as training, according to Asafa Powell’s coach all of us have access to the training methods. We all read the same stuff there is no secret in that regard. However, what is interesting about the Jamaicans, that I came across, is the psychological aspect/training that is involved.
It would be like hitting oil if we found out what books they read on the psychological programing that is involved becasue here in America; and here it goes again, we don’t even address this at all.
Regardless, what I can deduce from Bolt, Powell and other Jamaicans is that they are mature, calm, and relaxed when on and off the track. Can we say the same for our athletes except for Mike Johnson?[/quote]
did you just call michael johnson mature?
did you just call Michael Johnson mature?
I know, I know, many people don’t “like” Michael because the hear say is that he is prick and I have seen a video where he interviewed Mr. Chambers on his drug use then turned around and bad mouthed him on the same video behind his back BUT Mr. Johnson is still very professional, quiet, and private. I’m sure this is a key to his success the ability to be a little shady/A@@**** but at the same time be professional about it; many business men are like this (i.e Steve Jobs). Doesn’t make it right; I’m just saying.
Regardless, Bolt and Powell are nowhere even close to 30 year old mature men but they carry themselves in the interviews, on the track and off the track as if they were. They are also pretty humble too; I believe this has to count for something.
[quote author="cockysprinter" date="1232432336"]did you just call Michael Johnson mature?
I know, I know, many people don’t “like” Michael because the hear say is that he is prick and I have seen a video where he interviewed Mr. Chambers on his drug use then turned around and bad mouthed him on the same video behind his back BUT Mr. Johnson is still very professional, quiet, and private. I’m sure this is a key to his success the ability to be a little shady/A@@**** but at the same time be professional about it; many business men are like this (i.e Steve Jobs). Doesn’t make it right; I’m just saying.
Regardless, Bolt and Powell are nowhere even close to 30 year old mature men but they carry themselves in the interviews, on the track and off the track as if they were. They are also pretty humble too; I believe this has to count for something.[/quote]
thats a bit of an understatement and its not really hearsay. johnson makes a total ass out of himself in every article he writes, which isnt the mark of maturity. anyways, i do like the way the jamaicans carry themselves. its probably just part of their culture. in america, we brag and nfl players celebrate after every tackle, even if it was a first down.
Bolt is set to open with a 400m in a couple weeks. Any predictions on his time?
I’d guess 46.15.
ELITETRACK Founder
I think Powell is running the 400m at the same meet. I’m not sure they’ll be in the same heat though. I don’t know if Powell would push him in any case.
ELITETRACK Founder
According to this article he’s racing on Feb 14th.
ELITETRACK Founder
I think Powell is running the 400m at the same meet. I’m not sure they’ll be in the same heat though. I don’t know if Powell would push him in any case.
How do u feel about 100m guys opening there season with the 400m is this good?
well lets hope asafa has improved since last year or bolt will walk him again…
I’d never do it but they both follow what is mostly a long-to-short training plan so I guess it would be equivalent to someone on a short-to-long plan running 60s during the indoor season.
ELITETRACK Founder
I’d never do it but they both follow what is mostly a long-to-short training plan so I guess it would be equivalent to someone on a short-to-long plan running 60s during the indoor season.
True, CF says there training is more s-l because the 300-400’s are more at tempo pace and they do lots of hills, sleds, 30m starts etc.
I could’ve sworn I’ve seen quotes from there coaches where they say that they don’t really do speed work until later in the year. That would classify it as L-S to me. Maybe CF’s just wants to indicate he has been part of their success.
ELITETRACK Founder
I could’ve sworn I’ve seen quotes from there coaches where they say that they don’t really do speed work until later in the year. That would classify it as L-S to me. Maybe CF’s just wants to indicate he has been part of their success.
Stephen Francis
He started by mentioning that there are 2 ways to prepare a sprinter:
1: Long to Short…..Get them fit with an autumn of volume/mileage/over-distance.
Proceed to more specific work…..more intense. Sprinting added at the end.
2: Short to Long…..Develop speed from day 1. As the winter season involves 60m competition, prepare for this in Oct and Nov
After March, introduce speed endurance.
General Preparation is 4 months. Some start in September but the pros in late October or even November. This phase will go till March and will involve
Hill sprints: Twice a week.
Weights: 4 times a week.He mentioned that he doesn’t perform traditional lifts, apart from Bench presses and Cleans. He rarely does squats as they can be dangerous. Lots of years experience required. Instead, he prefers the 1 leg squat, which is more sprint specific. If he is gonna involve a squat, it’ll be a front squat, so the weight can be thrown forward in case of emergency. He likes jump squats and split jumps. Weights will be done before a sprint session.
Drills are performed to specifically strengthen, rather than to improve form. He will use high knees and straight leg bounds for specific strength. High knees for 100 or even 150m to develop hip flexors. He emphasised trying to understand what the body does in sprinting and then develop those muscles.
He wants attention paid to the back body: from the lumbar back to the heel, these being the most involved in sprinting. He’ll perform hamstring work 4-5 times a week as this area works 3 times more than the front. His guys hardly get injured there due to the extra effort spent on this area.
Sprinting, he mentioned, is not natural, so hams get stressed. Important to do hip extension exercises: e.g. straight leg pulley hip extension. Not much focus needed on quads
Running will be done in sneakers on grass till Feb.
8x300m with 5 min rest.
12x200m with 3 min rest.
These slow endurance style workouts will be performed twice a week. His 300’s are his staple workout and should be done every week. They develop resistance to pain.
There will also be 2 sprint sessions a week. These will include mechanics from blocks, sled work from blocks, 20’s, 30’s etc.
One day a week, there’ll be Circuit training work. He mentioned Burpees as a typical circuit station, but wasn’t too keen on demonstrating!!! Circuits will go on till Dec.
Also, he’ll never change a program to accomodate indoor season
He also won’t peak for e.g. a Commonwealths. Sherone Simpson ran 11.11 in January and 11.03 in August. As long as one keeps the specifics in the program they’ll perform well. He mentioned a need to be at best against the Americans. If it’s a less important period, don’t change preparation. Some periods will obviously get sacrificed when targeting specific times of the year.
He also performs testing on his athletes. He has a 3 week training cycle followed by 1 week of testing. Tests will go on till April, examples of which are: Vertical jump, Long jump, throw for distance, 1RM in gym. He has a repetoire of 15-18 tests and will perform 3 a day on test week.
Core work is performed 3 times a week. Large amount of abs work is done with a medicine ball.
He mentioned a disliking to sand runs as they stress the quads too much
He also doesn’t use overspeed training for fear of getting hurt. It’s easy for athlete to lose control during overspeed. The important thing is to stay healthy and not do anything stupid. Normal sprints to 60m are also largely avoided for fear of injury, 50-60m being prime stage for athlete to pull up.
Maybe it’s a matter of opinion but that sure doesn’t look like S-L to me. At least not in the traditional sense. Especially when you consider that all the running is done on grass in sneakers.
ELITETRACK Founder
Maybe it’s a matter of opinion but that sure doesn’t look like S-L to me. At least not in the traditional sense. Especially when you consider that all the running is done on grass in sneakers.
Maybe because of the pace of the 200-400’s and they are during speed from day 1 of the program etc..
** Grass runs develop stiffness.
I’m not sure about the grass=stiffness reports. I can think of reasons that it might be the case but just as many reasons why it might not. Anyone aware of any research to suggest this might be the case? If so, let’s start another thread. I kinda find it funny that for the 50 years prior to the recent Jamaican sprint explosion, the fact that there were only a handful of synthetic tracks was seen as a bad thing. Now that they’re running really fast, it’s all of a sudden one of the reasons they’re running fast. Not saying that it doesn’t help because I think that there’s a possibility it might but I’m not sure it helps more than it hurts (in other aspects).
ELITETRACK Founder
Powell ran 47.75 today in JA. His PR is 47.17 from 2007.
ELITETRACK Founder
Bolt just ran 46.35. This article says he jogged the last 100m. It must be nice to be so good you only have to run whatever distance you want and still win.
ELITETRACK Founder
I’m waiting to see if video comes out on this race. Because if he just jogged the last 100m as the article implies (or even just trots in) he really could be an almost immediate contender to Wariner and Merritt. I wonder what those 2 are capable of running right now? With his stated focus on the 100m and 200m this year I’m excited to see what he can run over the longer race.
Also interesting is the fact that Yohan Blake ran 46.80 over 400m. I think he, Asafa and Usain are going to keep the Jamaican 4×100 as the dominant force for several years to come.
ELITETRACK Founder
Bolt just ran a windy 9.93 yesterday.
https://www.jamaica-gleaner.com/gleaner/20090315/sports/sports3.html
Note the picture in the link. It looks like he speed-walked across the line.
ELITETRACK Founder