The biggest sprinting stars of 2010 Ostrava Golden Spike – triple Olympic Champion and World Record holder Usain Bolt and former World Record holder at 100 m Asafa Powell – already arrived in Ostrava. Despite a rainy weather at the airport both Jamaicans were pretty optimistic.
“This is probably a typical weather for Ostrava, isn´t it?” Asafa Powell asked, reflecting on his victory five years ago when he ran a “rainy World Record” 9.85seconds.
“This year I would like to run my season´s best in Ostrava,” he added. His best reset in 2010 is 9.75 secs from Doha. “I would like to confirm my new nickname Afaster,” he reminded about a new song of him.
Usain Bolt arrived in a good mood after a long flight from Shanghai – Seoul – Prague – Ostrava. “It was pretty comfortable flight and I slept quite a lot,” Jamaican triple World Champion said to number of Czech journalists.
“I am comfortable with such an attention but don´t you want to go to sleep?” he joked after arriving just about 11 p. m.
Usain Bolt will race in the men’s 300m dash the first time in his career at 2010 Ostrava Golden Spike. According to his words he has already tried it in practise session and finished in a time of 31.00secs. Michael Johnson holds the World Record at 30.85.
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OSTRAVA, Czech Republic (AP) - Usain Bolt won a rarely contested 300-meter race in 30.97 seconds in rain at the Golden Spike on Thursday.
Bolt, who holds the world records in the 100 and 200, was boosted by a solid start and cruised to an easy victory. But the wet track, marked by puddles, prevented him from challenging the world record of 30.85 set by Michael Johnson at Pretoria in 2000.
The IAAF does not recognize the 300m world record as it was not at major events.
Bolt ran a competitive 300m for the first time, and said he didn’t plan to compete in the distance regularly.
Meanwhile, Bolt’s Jamaican teammate Asafa Powell had little trouble with the rainy conditions, running the fastest 100m time in the world this season.
After running a 9.88 to win his prelim heat, Powell stopped the clock in 9.83 in the final. The time supplanted Bolt’s 9.86 from the Colorful Daegu Meeting as the fastest in the world this year.
In a special arrangement by meet organizers, all 100m racers were also given a fully automatic time for 100 yards. Powell’s time at the juncture, 9.09 seconds, eclipsed the 9.21, the fastest time ever recorded, run by Charlie Greene in 1967. The time also trumped the fastest hand time on record for 100y, 9.0, which Ivory Crockett ran in 1974.
He looks like he struggles to be smooth over that last 20-30m though. His recovery mechanics have never been as ‘complete’ or ‘easy’ as say Bolt or Gay. Just wondering if that is a function of leg limb proportion between upper and lower leg, or if he has flexibility issues in the quads, or if the exaggerated technique he uses doesn’t allow him to be smoother as fatigue sets in?
asafas mechanics have changed this year. over the las half of his race he has extreme dorsiflexion and knee lift. IT is almost like he his bounding. HE doesnt look to be struggling to much to me.
Totally agree on his revised mechanics. I guess struggling would be too strong a word. He looks very smooth with the mechanics up to the last 20m and then he just appears to lose some ‘smoothness’ if you can see what I mean.
okay its like the specific elastic strength in the leg complex (relatively shorter lower limb and foot to upper limb), is not there yet to maintain same mechanics after a high 7.9x- low 8.0x 80m effort. I think for asafa and his different quad to tibia ratio this specific strngth to maintain comes into play usuallynear the end of thesaon so long as he hasn’t sustained long layoff inseason
then again in 2005 and 2006 this specific strength to maintain smooth late race mechanics appeared to be already in place around may/june(05ostrava9.85, 05athens9.77(until 95m), 06gateshead9.77). But it could be that his power in the first 50m are on new increasing levels from 07 to now, thus the lack of specific strength until late in theeson.
He looked very smooth in that race, great transition from his drive phase into his top end speed. From the looks he may be bounding, but to my untrained eye his foot looks like its landing right underneath him, giving him such strength coming off the track.
Someone posted this fantastic link to a 300m test being done by MVP recently, with Asafa’s run being very smooth, very impressive…but with mechanics much different from what he has been unveiling in races so far this year.
My question is whether or not coaches want to see the mechanics of SE runs match (as closely as possible) those of race situations?
This week provides us with a gold mine in this respect as we also have Bolt’s 300m run along with a recent 100m run to compare if his mechanics in each run are as different as Powell’s. My initial impression is no.
If this is the case, would this be an area that Powell might improve upon?
