It's been mentioned in this thread, but it hasn't been really discussed. Blake and Lyles are 5'11". Gatlin is 6'1". Usain Bolt is 6'5". Everything else being equal, height is a factor in the 100m. You don't see many world class sprinters under 5'10". I'm sure they exist, but most world class sprinters have been closer to 6' or taller. Carl Lewis is 6'2".
The fastest 60m every recorded was in the 100m semi-finals in Tokyo when Su Bingtian ran 6.29. Su is 5'8". Bolt's top speed is faster than Bingtian's. Another outlier is Christian Coleman at 5'9", but they are the exceptions to the rule.
Height obviously isn't the only reason Bolt's record is so impressive, but it is a factor. If you watch his races, Bolt would begin to pull away between 50 and 70 meters. He could run faster from 50 to 100m than anyone in the world at the time.
Tons of those guys were/are as fast or faster than faster than Lewis.
Witherspoon was 6’5”, he wasn’t amazing.
The 100m is a composite. Taller guys (Bolt, Obikwelu, Lemaitre, Lewis, etc) have a lower first half ceiling, and shorter guys (Greene, BJ, CC, etc) have a lower second-half ceiling.
The most important thing in the use of PED’s is to compensate for deficiencies—tall guys in the first half, shorter guys in the 2nd half. The key is to look for athletes with an exceptional half—eg Bolt in the 2nd, BJ in the 1st—and supplement accordingly. It’s a system as old as time.
The vogue now has been to find those intrinsically better in the 2nd half, but only because guys except CC have forgotten how to accelerate well. The fashion before that was BJ, Mullings, Greene, Frater, etc who had a great first half, then the 2nd was bumped. BJ’s Seoul 2nd half was great; Greene’s was always great; Frater used to run long 2nd’s on WR relays with the best ever running other legs!
There is no intrinsic 100m benefit from height. Which direction supps better is a function of both supps and enforcement environment.
The best seems to be the mid-range guys like Gatlin, Bailey, etc maybe up to Powell and now Thompson, who use different amounts of broader-spectrum tools.
Each era is different. Great height is no advantage. 6’5” or 6’6” is imo the max profitable, and maybe 5’7” or 5’8” the min. Between those 2 values, you play. The he better you are at the game, and the more competitive advantages you have, the better you end up. Bolt had the biggest competitive advantage in the history of sprinting, all the way to the top, which is the only reason he has ended up with the fastest clocking.
It's been mentioned in this thread, but it hasn't been really discussed. Blake and Lyles are 5'11". Gatlin is 6'1". Usain Bolt is 6'5". Everything else being equal, height is a factor in the 100m. You don't see many world class sprinters under 5'10". I'm sure they exist, but most world class sprinters have been closer to 6' or taller. Carl Lewis is 6'2".
The fastest 60m every recorded was in the 100m semi-finals in Tokyo when Su Bingtian ran 6.29. Su is 5'8". Bolt's top speed is faster than Bingtian's. Another outlier is Christian Coleman at 5'9", but they are the exceptions to the rule.
Height obviously isn't the only reason Bolt's record is so impressive, but it is a factor. If you watch his races, Bolt would begin to pull away between 50 and 70 meters. He could run faster from 50 to 100m than anyone in the world at the time.
Tons of those guys were/are as fast or faster than faster than Lewis.
Witherspoon was 6’5”, he wasn’t amazing.
The 100m is a composite. Taller guys (Bolt, Obikwelu, Lemaitre, Lewis, etc) have a lower first half ceiling, and shorter guys (Greene, BJ, CC, etc) have a lower second-half ceiling.
The most important thing in the use of PED’s is to compensate for deficiencies—tall guys in the first half, shorter guys in the 2nd half. The key is to look for athletes with an exceptional half—eg Bolt in the 2nd, BJ in the 1st—and supplement accordingly. It’s a system as old as time.
The vogue now has been to find those intrinsically better in the 2nd half, but only because guys except CC have forgotten how to accelerate well. The fashion before that was BJ, Mullings, Greene, Frater, etc who had a great first half, then the 2nd was bumped. BJ’s Seoul 2nd half was great; Greene’s was always great; Frater used to run long 2nd’s on WR relays with the best ever running other legs!
There is no intrinsic 100m benefit from height. Which direction supps better is a function of both supps and enforcement environment.
The best seems to be the mid-range guys like Gatlin, Bailey, etc maybe up to Powell and now Thompson, who use different amounts of broader-spectrum tools.
Each era is different. Great height is no advantage. 6’5” or 6’6” is imo the max profitable, and maybe 5’7” or 5’8” the min. Between those 2 values, you play. The he better you are at the game, and the more competitive advantages you have, the better you end up. Bolt had the biggest competitive advantage in the history of sprinting, all the way to the top, which is the only reason he has ended up with the fastest clocking.
Basically agree, but even you are overemphasizing height with finishing abilities. I'd agree there's overlap, like a Venn diagram with height and "2nd half" proficiency in sprinters. But it's not a universal truth, and you could get a guy under 6' to finish with the best of them.
To make a long story short (pun) -since people mostly ignore anyway-, I'd argue that Shacarri Richardson is an example of a inversion of the height claim. She's a bad starter and a stronger finisher, and she's quite short, even for females. I know this inversion can happen because that's how I was as a sprinter, too, though not nearly at the elite level (in gender contexts, anyway) as a Richardson.
Another good (and should be obvious) example:
Tyson Gay is 5'11 and his peak finishing ability was probably closer in quality to Bolts than Gays starting ability was to abolt. In essence, Gay was typically out accelerated by Bolt, rather than Bolt simply running away from him. Doesn't Gay have the fastest 10m split, outside of Bolt, ever recorded?? So he was a male under 6' and he was practically inverting Bolt in real time. Though 5'11 isn't exactly short...I still argue it's proof against the claims made here about sprinter height.
Based on the data from , someone will need to reach faster than his peak speed, which was done around 270 steps per minute at about 9ft per step (.81s per 10m). The highest rate I've seen someone do is around 315spm, which would require 7.72ft steps (300spm would require 8.1ft steps). More than likely, it will be someone close to his height. Ostriches, in general, are faster than Emus.
I absolutely agree with Bolt when he said that he developed his talent from carrying loads of water for miles when he was a child. I have way more to say about why that is, but I'll leave it at that. Hopefully my theories will prove to be correct.
Based on the data from , someone will need to reach faster than his peak speed, which was done around 270 steps per minute at about 9ft per step (.81s per 10m). The highest rate I've seen someone do is around 315spm, which would require 7.72ft steps (300spm would require 8.1ft steps). More than likely, it will be someone close to his height. Ostriches, in general, are faster than Emus.
I absolutely agree with Bolt when he said that he developed his talent from carrying loads of water for miles when he was a child. I have way more to say about why that is, but I'll leave it at that. Hopefully my theories will prove to be correct.
Ugh. When engineers who ran one mile runs in gym class think they can enter the chat...
Ugh. When engineers who ran one mile runs in gym class think they can enter the chat...
Funny - Your example, Tyson Gay, was my favorite sprinter until the obvious because heavily analyzing his gait helped me develop the aforementioned theories. Imho, his stride is close to optimal.
It will get broken someday. Beamon's LJ record, as astonishing as it was, eventually got broken. But I'm dubious Bolt's will get broken in my lifetime. Same for his 200m, which I think is even better.
All I can say is, I'm glad I was alive to see Bolt run. He was truly a once-in-a-lifetime talent (and he had the personality to go with it).
Is there no snarky talk about his record like there is about Flo-Jo's?
We at least know the wind was legal for his records. If he did dope, and I have no evidence that he did, I also doubt he doped more/better than all his competitors. So it’s still an outlier performance.
Is there no snarky talk about his record like there is about Flo-Jo's?
We at least know the wind was legal for his records. If he did dope, and I have no evidence that he did, I also doubt he doped more/better than all his competitors. So it’s still an outlier performance.
Yeah I would agree with this. The essence of this is how Usain Bolt was just a perfect candidate for whatever they were doing on that island for a decade. Because just as every sprinter has an inherent skill set based on their physiology the way certain "vitamins" help them will have varying impacts.
It's like the tall sprinter/short sprinter basic skill set right? Carl Lewis v Ben Johnson. Johnson was faster out of the blocks because he could turn his shorter legs quick, but when things tightened up his shorter stride length hurt him. Lewis was the opposite, terrible out of the blocks with his long legs but at the end of the race his stride length bought him back and past the field on most occasions.
With Bolt you have this tall skinny kid who has outlier talent already running 19.93 at age 17 but of course he's terrible over the 100m because he's got a bad start and drive phase because he's 6'4. He's on the circuit running easily under 20.0 for the 200m but doesn't even touch the 100 because there is no point and he basically runs his first 100m ever in an official race (there is literally no record of him even running one) in 2007 where he runs 10.03. The rest is history. He starts 08 running 10.03 again in March and then in May runs 9.76 (there is that magical 0.25-0.3 I was talking about - the same one we saw with Flo-Jo, Tim Montgomery, Marcel Jacobs etc etc) before breaking the WR in NYC of all places at the end of that month.
So I agree with you in that I don't think there was "more" doping or "better" doping - he just did the inverse Ben Johnson. He already had great endurance with his anaerobic power, had the stride length at 6'4 - he just needed something to kick-start him out of the blocks, drive-phase and get him up to full speed faster than the 80-90m it was taking him in the 200m. Whatever was going on did just that and my guess (again pure guess, no evidence of this) is that the 100m almost happened by accident, that the goal was to really chase the 200 because that was obvious with his junior credentials and then whoops, we just ripped off 9.76 at the Kingston, Jamaica "International" and then we broke the WR 3 weeks later.
Being the right candidate for what's available is far better than what is actually available and a lot of it is just right place, right time and luck. Lucky for some.
Wait till they come up with shoes for the sprints. Bekele’s seemingly unbreakable records were at 15 years before being quickly set aside within the first year of cheat shoes. Same with Rupp’s 10000m record. 15 of the top 20 times ever for women’s 10000m were ran in the last 4 years. It’s only a matter of time and technology before legends like Bolt are rendered obsolete like the Bekeles, Gebs, and Tergats of yesteryear. And I don’t think sprint legends are going to let it slide like the distance runners.
I really wish Bolt ran hard through the finish in Beijing finals.
His semis in Beijing he literally jogged a 9.85.
He speed that week was his peak in my opinion. If he had tried his hardest in those races and didn't jog or celebrate i really think he runs a low 9.5
Beijing has already been analyzed to death and that was a 9.6 low race. Probably more comparable to hjs London 2012 race than anything else else. Deceleration/breaking form mattered but not by as much as people think.
9.58 is his best race top to bottom and it’s not that close. He was through 60 faster than anyone has ever been in his Berlin run. Generally 6.31 is what it has been projected at but some estimate it could have been as fast as 6.29
I really wish Bolt ran hard through the finish in Beijing finals.
His semis in Beijing he literally jogged a 9.85.
He speed that week was his peak in my opinion. If he had tried his hardest in those races and didn't jog or celebrate i really think he runs a low 9.5
Beijing has already been analyzed to death and that was a 9.6 low race. Probably more comparable to hjs London 2012 race than anything else else. Deceleration/breaking form mattered but not by as much as people think.
9.58 is his best race top to bottom and it’s not that close. He was through 60 faster than anyone has ever been in his Berlin run. Generally 6.31 is what it has been projected at but some estimate it could have been as fast as 6.29
Wait till they come up with shoes for the sprints. Bekele’s seemingly unbreakable records were at 15 years before being quickly set aside within the first year of cheat shoes. Same with Rupp’s 10000m record. 15 of the top 20 times ever for women’s 10000m were ran in the last 4 years. It’s only a matter of time and technology before legends like Bolt are rendered obsolete like the Bekeles, Gebs, and Tergats of yesteryear. And I don’t think sprint legends are going to let it slide like the distance runners.
I think it's more like "wait until they come up with wavelight for sprints" - but not sure what that looks like.
I mean the "shoes" didn't seem to help a lot of guys when it came to slower tactical races in Paris (due to the elimination of time qualifiers from heats etc) - if we are assuming they help guys when they chase times, we have to assume they help with finishing ability in slower races right? Except they don't and didn't.
Back to WL for sprints - the only thing I could think of would be some weird rolling gate like horses have for their flying starts. Create some kind of "drafting bubble" effect similar to Gatlins 9.45 gameshow experience. That would be a sight to behold but not sure how feasible that would be.
It will always be about doping when it comes to the boundaries of performance in the sprints.
It will always be about doping when it comes to the boundaries of performance in the sprints.
No, that's just ignorance. The outliers in the 100m are those men who can attain 12 meters per second and women who can attain 11 meters per second. And this is a genetic trait that can't be attained by doping.
When they perfect their start and their speed endurance, they become true world class sprinters.
You and others like you are the real doping problem but you will never understand why.
Repeat the olimpic final lineup in Hernando Siles Stadium at La Paz (Bolivia) 3 weeks after a world major. At 3637 (11.932 ft) above sea level. If they catch a good legal tailwind (+1,8) we can see sub 9.70's and probably a sub 9.60.
For example, Letsile Tebogo ran 9.91 (WJR) in Cali (Colombia) two years ago. If you look the video, in the final 20 meters he was preserving himself to probably, a sub 9.84. And Cali is not too high in altitude.