Ben Johnson vs Usain Bolt

slowcoach--

Everybody knows that top-level sprinting is bogus, come on!

Part of it is that Jamaicans CARE, whereas other people don't care nearly as much.

I remember Bailey when he was just hanging around, not taking anything seriously. It was only when he began to care that he became world-class--but you could tell, just by looking at him, that he was something special. I remember a meet at UofT, IIRC, where he showed up out of nowhere and crushed the 60m.

He was just another 6.7 guy hanging out, until he began to care, so that is certainly part of the Jamaican phenomenon.

The other part is, of course, drugs, and a completely fraudulent or non-existent testing system, especially out-of-competition testing.

And why the heck is Mullings' 9.80 still on the IAAF list?

Also, Carter's 9.78 should be removed as bogus. Like somebody else said (maybe it was Boldon), take a guy's second-best time, and that is probably his real PR. ESPECIALLY Carter.

Sprintgeezer wrote:

I would also like to have seen Johnson's response to slightly different coaching--that guy didn't run 9.79 on great coaching, he ran it on roids, with an M.D. as his primary coach.

Can you elaborate on is?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a6azMiOeKNc

What about Don Johnson vs Usain Bolt?

There is nothing "easy" about Johnson's sprint style, from his start to his top-speed form--especially not about his "drive phase".

It is all power-dependent--that is to say, it is not economical in any way. Essentially the only way to get faster using that style is to develop more power, so that you can "go harder", while with other styles you can play with angles, length of race phases, length and style of transition between race phases, relaxation, and economy of movement.

These things can all be played with using Johnson's style, but not nearly to the same extent. His race is one giant block of the same movement style, with an increasing stride length as the race progresses--and his start, without huge power available, is actually slower than many other types of starts--in fact, he got beaten regularly at the start when he was clean, and early in his PED use. You can see some examples of that in this vid, where he gets beaten in a 60m, and where you can see adjacent sprinters with the same stride rate as Johnson at the start of the race, notably the (Japanese?) guy to Johnson's right:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H6WrqyKglzI

With other styles, sprinters learn to economize their movements so that they have reserves left over for the speed endurance part of the race. Johnson had no such economization, and relied on roids for the SE.

The coaching in Johnson's group was modeled around power, and was a training model in vogue at the time both in Francis' group, and elsewhere--but there were other training models around, and not everybody subscribed to the model where the only real improvements came from improving power. When the drugs hit, any evolution of the training model ground to a halt, and the roids were seen as the primary path to improvement.

Assuming that Johnson was at all coachable, it is an open question whether or not he would have sprinted even faster than he did, had he had a different race model, that included a drive phase, etc.--he may even have been faster at the start, using a Powell-type start, because Johnson's start doesn't permit much useful force application on the very first step--it is more of an intermediate step to keep the CG going in the right direction and the right height off the track, than it is a step that profitably applies force down the direction of the track. What you are left with is two cycles of force from the same leg--the lead leg in the blocks--with a very quick intermediate skip-type step from the other leg, which is arguably an inefficient way to start because 1) you forego the opportunity to apply force down the track on the first foot plant, and 2) you prematurely fatigue the lead leg in the blocks by demanding 2 essentially consecutive maximum-force cycles, leaving that leg less time to recover for its second cycle, and resulting in less force delivery on that cycle than would otherwise be possible.

Johnson's style, from the start onwards, was predicated on the power available from the roids, but that power may not even have been used efficiently.

Had he been coachable, and had he had different coaching, he may well have gone at least as fast as Bolt has.

Around the time of Johnson and shortly thereafter, some people tried to re-create his race, but they found that it ended up being slower than other race models.

Do you see anybody using it today? No. What time do you think Bolt would put up using that style?

Sprintgeezer wrote:

9.79 had the biggest "wow" effect of anything in track, ever, IMHO.

Not even close - a) most people knew he was on roids, and that drastically diminished any "wow" effect

b) he only went .04 faster than his old WR. And he didn't start jogging halfway like Usain did in 08

If you discount roids, Flo Jo's performances were far more "Wow" than anything Ben ever ran.

Ben said he could run 9.3? There's also a video of Ben sitting there talking about his roids and saying, repeatedly, "I'm not a cheater". I'd dismiss pretty much anything the guy says.

It was interesting reading the splits on that race, though. Of course, Lewis also went on to run significantly faster later in his career than he did in Seoul.

All this talk some people here like to bandy about of "if only" and "coulda woulda shoulda" is silly. Johnson never ran 9.3, or even 9.6, just like Jim Ryun never ran 3:24. It's like I used to joke with a friend of mine, "Well, I'm definitely in the best shape of my life; mentally, I'm ready to go under 13 mins for 5000m this year".

Sprintgeezer wrote:

With other styles, sprinters learn to economize their movements so that they have reserves left over for the speed endurance part of the race. Johnson had no such economization, and relied on roids for the SE.

What were his competitors relying on for the SE?

Sprintgeezer wrote:

With other styles, sprinters learn to economize their movements so that they have reserves left over for the speed endurance part of the race. Johnson had no such economization, and relied on roids for the SE.

Bobby Kersee wrote:

What were his competitors relying on for the SE?

Can you even read?

I think that the point that Bobby might have been trying to make was that, even though others in the race had different running styles, ultimately they were all proven to have been doping, as well.

Here's the thing about that: I believe that Calvin Smith and Robson DaSilva were absolutely clean. I also believe that Lewis was clean, notwithstanding the news of the suppressed positive tests.

Why? Ego.

Having a good ego myself, as all sprinters are required to have, I find it difficult to believe that Lewis would take PED's, because that would be tantamount to admitting that he wasn't good enough to do it himself, no matter who else was taking what. I think he believed that he was the best of his time (and possibly the best ever), and I can't see him ever questioning that belief.

Look at the trajectory of his career, and you won't see any evidence of drugs. Even his 9.86 WR has been attributed to an illegally-fast track in Japan. He lost plenty of races, especially later in his career. Had he not been so worried about Ben in Seoul, he may well have run high 9.8x in 1988.

Lewis, like others, tends in the later stages of a 100m to decrease his stride frequency, while increasing his stride length, as a means to effect SE. Lewis was a champ at this, which is why he seemed to "relax" better near the end of races than did his competitors. If you look at that link to the splits again, you can see that Lewis had the greatest decrease of stride frequency in the third segment relative to the second segment, of any athlete in the race--decrease, in descending order,

Lewis .43

Christie .40

DaSilva .30

Mitchell .21

Johnson .18

Smith .15

Williams .14

Consider: 1) that this data suggests 3 basic categories--a) good relaxers (Lewis and Christie), b) intermediate relaxers (DaSilva), and c) power runners (the rest); 2) that the decrease in stride frequency of the top group is double to triple that of the bottom group; and 3) that the list correlates well with height:

Lewis 6-2

Christie 6-2

DaSilva 6-2

Mitchell 5-9

Johnson 5-10

Smith 5-10

Williams 5-9

Sprinters like Lewis, Christie, and DaSilva ran significantly different 100m races from Johnson, and could maintain their speed at the end of races by relaxing--as opposed to the others on this list, who could not relax as well, and who could not maintain their speed in a similar fashion.

The other relied on PED's to maintain their speed--think of Johnson, Mitchell, and Williams, who were all world-class sprinters, but who had very low decrease in stride frequency in the 60-90m segment of the race.

Note that I assume, for purposes of this post, that "relaxation" means that one can decrease stride frequency while increasing stride length, not that one can maintain a given stride frequency while maintaining the same stride length--that is just impossible. You can see the impossibility of this when runners try to maintain the high stride frequency, and end up choppy in the last half of the race.

In any case, those athletes in that race with the best SE other than Johnson--Lewis and Christie--are those who ran races that were the most significantly different from Johnson's, who ran the first half of their races most efficiently. Notice also that they are the athletes, other than Johnson, with the best PR's.

Here is the list by decreasing order, of the increase in stride length in the third segment vs the second segment:

Lewis .25

Christie .21

Johnson .14

DaSilva .12

Mitchell .10

Smith .08

Williams -.02

NOTICE THAT THE ONLY PERSON TO MOVE IN THE ORDER WAS JOHNSON!

This was the Johnson miracle--he had no weaknesses. He was closer to the bottom of the first list and closer to the top of the second list, and is the only one of the listed athletes to exhibit such a pattern. He paid no penalties--he was able to reasonably increase his stride length WHILE minimizing his stride frequency, more so than any other listed athlete.

Here is a list ranking the athletes in order of the increase in stride length divided by the decrease in stride frequency:

Johnson .7778 (1)

Lewis .5814 (2)

Smith .5333 (4)

Christie .5250 (3)

Mitchell .4762 (5)

DaSilva .4000 (6)

Williams -.1429 (7)

A higher number is better, and look at Johnson, he is off the chart compared to the other athletes! This list is almost identical to the order of finish, which is the figure in parentheses in the above list.

Notice that the only other guy in the list with a first half anything even remotely like Johnson's--Williams--gets absolutely decimated both in this list, and in the race. His stride length actually DECREASED in the third segment relative to the second segment, the only athlete in the race to have had this happen.

He tied up, in a major way. Why? Because he powered the first 2 segments with no consideration at all for economy, and he paid handsomely with a complete breakdown in the third and final segment.

The other guys at the top of this list, Lewis, Christie, and Smith, all came through to finish well, and ultimately medal, because they exhibited racing economy which allowed them to have better SE.

Johnson had SE NOT due to any consideration of economy, nor to "intrinsic greatness"--all of those athletes had "intrinsic greatness"--it came from the roids. If he hadn't been on them, he would have been decimated, just as was Williams. No, there is no guarantee that you will have SE just because you take roids--but if you run the first 2 segments like Johnson, it IS guaranteed that you will NOT have any SE WITHOUT roids.

It is still an open question what Johnson could have done with BOTH the roids AND a different, more economical race model. We "know" now that the 100m is being won in the third segment, and that Bolt in particular has tremendous SE, which is why he eclipsed everybody in London, for instance.

By this account, if Johnson had run a more economical first 2 segments, he could very well have had just as much SE as does Bolt in the third segment, and thus have kept pace with Bolt for the entire 100m.

One further thing to note, which is that the order of finish reflects the average stride length over the entire 100m with the minor exception of Mitchell beating DaSilva...

...and with the MAJOR exception that the athlete with the shortest average stride length WON the race!

Average stride length, followed by order of finish in parentheses:

Lewis 2.29 (2)

Christie 2.28 (3)

Smith 2.28 (4)

Mitchell 2.19 (5)

DaSilva 2.24 (6)

Williams 2.19 (7)

Johnson 2.15 (1)

The Johnson miracle is that not only did he WIN the Olympic final with these types of numbers, he set a HUGE world record in so doing, in a time that is still staggering, and which could automatically be lowered by .10 to account for premature celebration and improved track and equipment.

Everybody thinks that Bolt is anomalous, and he is, in certain respects--but IMHO Johnson was at least as anomalous as Bolt, perhaps more so when you consider the absolute uniqueness of his race model, and the absolutely unique success he had with it, relative to others who tried it.

Sprintgeezer, that is an awful lot of justification to make the point somebody isn't a cheat what that very Sprinter who was caught taking banned substances.

All of that post seems to be very vague "I know his mantality - A winner wouldn't cheat" and come sover as complete rubbish. An Ego deosn't stop people taking drugs, it mearly requires them to justify it with phraises like "everbody else was doing it" which is exactly what Lewis said and almost certainly what Lance Armstrong will say on Oprah if he admits what everybody knows.

I agree Calvin Smith and Robson DaSilva were the only guys we can genuinely believe to be clean but your justification of Carl Lewis is desperate and deluded.

eldanielfire--

I don't know about "desperate and deluded", but it could very well be wrong, of course.

Also, your paraphrasing of my argument ("I know his mentality--a winner wouldn't cheat") isn't accurate...it is more like "I know his mentality--someone who believes he is the absolute best wouldn't feel the need to cheat".

Rather, their focus would be on exposing others who do cheat, which is exactly what happened with Carl. I know, I went through the same dynamic, on a lesser scale, at a younger age, where kids were revealed to have lied about their ages by 2 or 3 years.

I absolutely admit that I could be wrong about Lewis--but I don't recall Lewis ever admitting anything and subsequently justifying his use by saying that "everybody else was doing it", as you suggest.

On the original topic, how do you think Johnson would stack up against Bolt in the same era?

Also, in terms of average stride length, compare Bolt at 2.44 in his 9.58, and Gay at 2.20 in his 9.71

I don't know about their stride length and stride frequency trajectories throughout the race, however--I'm sure somebody can find the data and do some quick arithmetic.

Are you one of Carl's boyfriends?

They were all doped, including Calvin Smith and Robson DaSilva.

Lewis was on the roids since he was at the University of Houston.

It was an equal playing field and Johnson beat them all, running 9.79 with his hand in the air.

Because he was the best. And he had the best coach and the best training program.

What??

Carl's GAY??!!

He should have stuck with Frederick.

This thread is a joke.

Ben Johnson(1988) vs. Usain Bolt(2008). 9.79 vs. 9.69. Geee I wonder who wins????

Sure, lets debate a nonsensical race between Ben Johnson a KNOWN DOPER, and Usain Bolt who has a sparkling clean record when it comes to drug testing. Not to mention the fact that clean Bolt is 0.21 seconds faster than Johnson when he was doped to the gills!

All you guys talking about how Johnson had a second gear at 80m.....so does Bolt! The last 40m is when he becomes a beast! Watch Bolt's documentary, The Fastest Man Alive where he breaks down his 100m race.

Again, this thread is a joke. What makes it worse is that people are actually entertaining this idea.

While we're at it, let's debate a nonsensical race between Rashid Ramzi in 2008 form, against Hicham El Guerrouj in 2004 form.

Master Troll--

Not only would Johnson give Bolt a run for his money, but Bob Hayes would also.

Not only that, but if Bailey had taken the PED's that other champions took/take, he probably wouldn't have been injured like he was, and could have trained enough to put together races that would challenge Bolt. In Atlanta he would have gone 9.7x had it not been for the false-starts, and for the fact that he had to come out of the blocks rather gingerly to make sure nothing broke.

Not only Johnson, but Hayes and Bailey would be right beside Bolt--and if not, they would be right on his shoulder.

Bolt is a monster, for sure--but so were those other guys.

Also, there is Blake, who is not to be forgotten.

I know he got crushed at the Games, but he didn't have a good race, for him.

I think that he is definitely the fastest guy around right now, next to a Wohlfahrt-modified Bolt. IMHO he is currently faster than Gay, Powell, and Gatlin, and by a fair bit, if he runs a good race. Gay and Gatlin nearly ALWAYS run good races for them, but if Blake nails his, he will win.

Blake is not to be toyed-with. This year, I think that he will approach Bolt's 9.58 by adjusted times, although he won't yet be as good as Bolt was in his 9.69

Believe it. Blake is there. If Johnson, Bailey, and Hayes were training and competing today under the same set of conditions under which Blake and Bolt train and compete, they would be there, too.

Sprintgeezer wrote:

Not only that, but if Bailey had taken the PED's that other champions took/take

You sure about that? LOL