You're right - It's NOT! She ran an amazing race and is a great athlete but the time is wrong. Even she thought something was up and didn't believe it. Watch her expression: she knows it's BS......
Wind aided but still. A 25 year old whose progression capped at ~12.5 a few years ago suddenly smashing the wr (with a bad start) and the whole field in general being faster than one would expect, the whole thing feels off.
Wind aided but still. A 25 year old whose progression capped at ~12.5 a few years ago suddenly smashing the wr (with a bad start) and the whole field in general being faster than one would expect, the whole thing feels off.
Yes it does. Even her season best before Eugene was 12.41. Her next best wind legal time was a 12.50 this year. Her WR is completely out of the blue.
Remember that it's not just shoe technology that has evolved over the last years, track building has too - I think I first heard about in Rio or Doha that Mondo is laying down new home stretch surface every night during a champs and that there are new bouncier compounds for the second and/or third layer down from the top meant to increase speed, maybe just as much as carbon in the shoes.
There is something wrong with that semi. No way there could be 1 WR; 6PBs 7NRs in one race. That is highly improbable. And there's no way Keni Harrison ran 12.27
Remember how I have gone off for years about the “Eugene 13”, the unbelievable 100m of years ago?
This sounds the same. IDK what happened here, but try adding 0.13 to all times, then adjust those times for wind and compare them to the athletes’ next-fastest basic SB’s.
Simple and crass, but the results I got years ago were laughable—the numbers ended up pretty much the same.
I believe its the shoes! The athletes all seemed to be using the carbon fiber super spikes with heel support. Check out the flow track interview with Brittany Anderson.
More records will fall soon. It actually looked like the Americans were having trouble with the extra energy return and over-running the hurdles (getting too close on 3rd step).
Word is she was wearing new shoes that are typically used for mid distance running. Legal, but I can imagine there's a future restriction on the cards there
Johnson, a Black former U.S. track and field star who won eight World Championship gold medals in his career, was skeptical on the BBC broadcast and on social media after Nigeria’s Tobi Amusan set …
If Amusan was using the same spikes all season... then it is not the spikes.
I think SprintGeezer is definitely right about Eugene - I had posted something similar a couple of years ago about the number of American athletes that had PB'd at US Nationals held at Oregon, and it was substantial. But Amusan's time is 3 tenths faster! I think there's something else going on there besides the track surface.
And btw, I don't think this applies to the other races. Sure Lyles ran a 19.3, but Knighton and Bednarek both ran slower than their PBs (Knighton by 3 tenths). And Bol ran slower than her PB, despite her great form. Aside from Kerley, the men's 100m times were all pretty reasonable.