So you were there?! What was the wind like in the stadium?
You know this race and 5min in the history of time has really become folklore and it's fascinating to look at it. 3 aspects:
- Visual/verbal evidence from the footage
- Evidence from other events around and at the same time as that round of
the 100m
- Quantifiable evidence in terms of the times run by other athletes, the
wind speed adjustments and how that fit into their performance level for 1988
Also important is to understand what a 0.0 wind is. It's not a "well it's not that windy is it?" situation, it's absolutely NO wind and even on what we would say are "perfect condition" days/nights there is almost always some type of breeze that triggers a wind gauge reading. It's just very rare to get 0.0 wind readings and especially on an afternoon like July 16 1988 in Indianapolis where at midday the stadium gauges were already reading over +2.5 (all 3 heats 2 hours prior were +2.7 or greater) and only picked up as the day continued (the mens final an hour later at 4.35pm was +5.2). So we know it was really windy that afternoon in Indy - the chances that the wind stopped dead for a 10-15 second period that afternoon? Well come to your own conclusion.
Visually and verbally we see the women go to their blocks and there is a closeup of Carlette Guidry from Texas and we see her pinned number on her back being filled like a sail. So even if you want to argue there is no wind at all (which you have to for a 0.0) that is clearly incorrect. Post race Flo-Jo of course has that wonderful hairdo and as Diane Williams comes to congratulate her she turns around and that hair is simply blowing in the wind. Again, the argument isn't legal wind, it's 0.0 wind and there is clearly wind and it's immediately (like within seconds) before and after she runs. More telling is Liquori on commentary saying prior to the race even happening (so he has no idea that this will happen hence is completely agenda free) that it's been a great year for her (FGJ) but due to the wind "of course the wind will mean that it (this race) won't count". You don't make a comment like that even unless it's obvious there is a zephyr coming up the home straight. You even don't make that comment if there is a possibility you could hit a +1.8/+1.9.
Not only does the wind have a pattern of getting steadily stronger that afternoon, there is an event happening at the same time on the same straight in the same direction literally 10-15 yards away from the race. The mens TJ was happening at the same time (it started at 2.30pm, FGJ's race was 3.45pm) and every single jump - all of them, in the final were wind aided and not just by a little. The "best" wind of the entire competition was a +3.0 for Carroll Cobb. Willie Banks jumped 18.20 which was way over the WR but he did it with a +5.2. The wind speeds of the top 8? 5.2, 5.2, 4.3, 3.3, 5.2, 4.9, 4.8, 4.8. Anyways if you don't believe me here are the facts for yourself.
Finally, the relative performances of the field. So even if you want to believe that FGJ magically catches fire for this one race, the stadium wind drops to absolute zero etc etc - it is almost completely implausible that the other athletes in that race would "catch fire" to almost the exact same degree and then revert back to the same degree in following races. Diane Williams who was second in that race never broke 11 seconds apart from this day when she ran 10.86. In the semi the next afternoon she ran 11.27 with a +1.6 which gives a wind-zero adjusted mark of 11.37. A Young Gail Devers ran 10.98 and a day later ran 11.24 with a +1.3 which gives a WZ 11.33. Guidry ran 11.11 and a day later ran 11.37 with a +1.3 which is a WZ 11.46. So in this fabled race alone the women were performing consistently between 3 and 5 tenths of a second faster from one day to the next. That is also the same for Flo Jo who ran 10.70 with a +1.6 (WZ 10.79 so right at that 0.3 conversion) - "but she was just taking it easy after the WR" - okay, she turns around in the final and runs 10.61 with a +1.2 which converts to a 10.68 - good but still waaayyy off 10.49. Even in Seoul where she clearly is giving absolutely everything to win the gold, she runs 10.54 but it's with a +3.0. Want to guess what that conversion is? It's a WZ 10.69 - 1/100th off what she did in the final in Indy and still 2 full tenths away from her allegedly wind-zero WR of 10.49
What was the wind that day? When you look at the TJ final, the numbers of all the athletes not just her - it was almost certainly in the +3.9-4.1 range. That would have given her a wind-zero adjusted time of 10.68 which was right at her level for 1988. It puts Diane Williams at 11.06 which is exactly what her level was (11.04-11.07 between 1984 and 1987). It puts Gail Devers at 11.18 which exactly her level in 1988 was for every race other than this one.
But if someone has a better case than that as to why/how this could possibly have been legal, let us know :D