I am not going to call WvN dumb. There have been a long list of sub-10.10 100m men who played American football with no serious leg injuries. Injuries can happen many different ways.
WvN was 24, 2016 Olympics, correct? More than a few posters on here have stated he likely would have broken 43 seconds if not for the injury. There is no evidence to support that opinion.
2016 Olympics 400m final, likely would have been his peak success. Has anyone else sprinted sub-43.05 400m at age 24 and sprinted 400m faster age 25 or older? No.
That last paragraph is an awful fallacy. No one else has sprinted sub 43.05 EVER so there is literally no evidence to refute or support your claim.
My claim? Multiple posters on this thread and dozens of posters over the past couple of years have stated WvN would have sprinted sub-43 400m if not for rugby or soccer injury. You and all others who believe WvN would have sprinted sub-43 400m have offered no evidence of a likely future sub-43 without rugby or soccer injury.
At a certain point, you have to live your life and not worry about whether you are risking injury at every turn. If he had been playing in season, that would have seemed a little foolish.
After a serious injury, it can be very difficult to ever get back to top form and if you are a few percentage points off, it can make a big difference in something like a 400m. Players in team sports can make up for a slight loss of explosiveness with smarter play gained from experience, or adjusting the way they play the game. This doesn't work for sprinters. You couldn't have the equivalent of Michael Jordan's flu game and win a championship 400m.
When Van Niekerk ran 43:03, that may have been one of those days where everything just felt perfect and he would never have reproduced it. If he had continued for the next four years running within a half second of that, it would have been an incredible career. Of course he might have had another one of those days. We'll never know. If he does get back into the 43s one day, it will be really amazing.
A year after setting the 400m WR he injured his ACL playing rugby. What was he thinking, that was idiotic? He was never the same. How much money did he cost himself by playing in that rugby game. And where was his coach in all this? Hope it was worth it. Truly a monumental failure.
Bad post. Of course the armchair Olympians can now saw it was a bad choice - obviously, given the outcomes. Duh.
But many runners play casual soccer, basketball, go skiing, climb mountains, and yes, even play some touch rugger. Even if freak accidents can happen, it's pretty dumb to make blanket statements that any thing with any risk is "dumb."
That said, I quit skiing even though I live near several amazing mountains. I am just so bad that my risk is extreme; I fear injury and I couldn't bear it if I lost my ability to run seriously. But I do play some soccer and basketball.
My daughter tore her ACL in a 100H hurdles race in the 9th grade (looked like she was going to win the district meet when she went down). She had the patellar tendon surgery to repair it. It took her tell her senior year in high school to get back to her 9th grade times.
At a certain point, you have to live your life and not worry about whether you are risking injury at every turn. If he had been playing in season, that would have seemed a little foolish.
After a serious injury, it can be very difficult to ever get back to top form and if you are a few percentage points off, it can make a big difference in something like a 400m. Players in team sports can make up for a slight loss of explosiveness with smarter play gained from experience, or adjusting the way they play the game. This doesn't work for sprinters. You couldn't have the equivalent of Michael Jordan's flu game and win a championship 400m.
When Van Niekerk ran 43:03, that may have been one of those days where everything just felt perfect and he would never have reproduced it. If he had continued for the next four years running within a half second of that, it would have been an incredible career. Of course he might have had another one of those days. We'll never know. If he does get back into the 43s one day, it will be really amazing.
exactly-that relatively small amount of speed lost due to injury for an elite athlete is the difference between 1st and 5th...James Edwards running back for New England tore his ACL while playing in a beach football game in 1999-he was never the same runner-he ran for over 1000 yards his rookie season...same thing with Billy Sims in the early 80s...
A year after setting the 400m WR he injured his ACL playing rugby. What was he thinking, that was idiotic? He was never the same. How much money did he cost himself by playing in that rugby game. And where was his coach in all this? Hope it was worth it. Truly a monumental failure.
It was asinine. Hey, let's have the 400m world record holder play in a meaningless rugby game, great idea! What a sponsor.
And I agree with others, that rugby game cost him and the world the very first sub 43 second 400m.
It probably cost him 2 x commonwealth golds, 3 x WC golds, 1 x OG gold and a sub 43 WR
Also has the OP ever heard of another sprinter called Usain Bolt by chance? He would often be spotted out playing a game called soccer which he had a bit of a love and flair for during his career. A
I’ve seen Bolt play. Trust me, he never had any flair for soccer…just in his own head.
He was like that kid in early years schooling who got by on his speed and his size. The thing was that kid was soon found out when others caught up to his growth spurt and had had years of figuring out how best to deal with his physical advantage. Plus they had worked on the technical elements of their game, while he, content to rest on his laurels, had got by on his physicality…until it no longer worked for him.
Bolt’s speed was negated by other players who knew where to position themselves and what to do to combat it…
He was never going to make it to the high level pro ranks like he dreamed he would.
A year after setting the 400m WR he injured his ACL playing rugby. What was he thinking, that was idiotic? He was never the same. How much money did he cost himself by playing in that rugby game. And where was his coach in all this? Hope it was worth it. Truly a monumental failure.
Does anyone know how he actually injured his ACL? We know it was in a rugby match, but did someone tackle him, take him to the ground, or run him over? Or did he just slip and fall on his own? Reason I ask is that I would hate to be the a$$hole who Ruined someone’s career…
A year after setting the 400m WR he injured his ACL playing rugby. What was he thinking, that was idiotic? He was never the same. How much money did he cost himself by playing in that rugby game. And where was his coach in all this? Hope it was worth it. Truly a monumental failure.
I coached high school. None of my runners were that stupid. After that happened a few of them texted and said- If YOU were his coach he never would have played in that game. LOLOLOL But it's true.
Also has the OP ever heard of another sprinter called Usain Bolt by chance? He would often be spotted out playing a game called soccer which he had a bit of a love and flair for during his career. A
I’ve seen Bolt play. Trust me, he never had any flair for soccer…just in his own head.
He was like that kid in early years schooling who got by on his speed and his size. The thing was that kid was soon found out when others caught up to his growth spurt and had had years of figuring out how best to deal with his physical advantage. Plus they had worked on the technical elements of their game, while he, content to rest on his laurels, had got by on his physicality…until it no longer worked for him.
Bolt’s speed was negated by other players who knew where to position themselves and what to do to combat it…
He was never going to make it to the high level pro ranks like he dreamed he would.
Wow, what an insight! A man who spent his life training to be the greatest sprinter the world has ever seen, who has a physique completely unheard of in football, is not as good as football as people who were streamed into it through natural talent and spent their young lives praticing.
Duh. The point was that he liked to play some soccer in his spare time while he was a track athlete. Your blowhard post has presented nothing to refute that.
A year after setting the 400m WR he injured his ACL playing rugby. What was he thinking, that was idiotic? He was never the same. How much money did he cost himself by playing in that rugby game. And where was his coach in all this? Hope it was worth it. Truly a monumental failure.
Does anyone know how he actually injured his ACL? We know it was in a rugby match, but did someone tackle him, take him to the ground, or run him over? Or did he just slip and fall on his own? Reason I ask is that I would hate to be the a$hole who Ruined someone’s career…
Probably a hard pivot on a planted leg, like most injuries of this type.
A year after setting the 400m WR he injured his ACL playing rugby. What was he thinking, that was idiotic? He was never the same. How much money did he cost himself by playing in that rugby game. And where was his coach in all this? Hope it was worth it. Truly a monumental failure.
Agree. Like entering Secretariat in a English steeplechase after he won the Triple Crown.
I am not going to call WvN dumb. There have been a long list of sub-10.10 100m men who played American football with no serious leg injuries. Injuries can happen many different ways.
WvN was 24, 2016 Olympics, correct? More than a few posters on here have stated he likely would have broken 43 seconds if not for the injury. There is no evidence to support that opinion.
2016 Olympics 400m final, likely would have been his peak success. Has anyone else sprinted sub-43.05 400m at age 24 and sprinted 400m faster age 25 or older? No.
"There is no evidence to support that opinion." Well, maybe he wouldn't have broken 43, but coming within 0.031 sec of doing it counts as evidence that he might well be capable of it.
That last paragraph is an awful fallacy. No one else has sprinted sub 43.05 EVER so there is literally no evidence to refute or support your claim.
My claim? Multiple posters on this thread and dozens of posters over the past couple of years have stated WvN would have sprinted sub-43 400m if not for rugby or soccer injury. You and all others who believe WvN would have sprinted sub-43 400m have offered no evidence of a likely future sub-43 without rugby or soccer injury.
I was specifically talking about the no one else under 43.05 part. Everything else is you said is perfectly correct. It's just that saying "no one else has sprinted sub 43.05 400m at 24 and then run faster at 25" doesn't make sense, as no one else has sprinted sub 43.05 ever, so no one else could have run faster at 25.
The dumbest was Santiago Canizares Spain's No. 1 goalkeeper going into the 2002 World Cup. He severed a tendon in his right foot and was ruled out just days before tournament after he tried to stop a falling bottle of aftershave like it was a football.