Asafa on the record

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21

PJ

A weak character doesn’t back up a severe loss in the Olympics with a 9.72.

How can you describe such an athlete as weak mentally. A weak athlete can’t survive more than a year in the circuit.

I did not say that. Maybe that is how you want to interpret it but I did not say and did not mean that. Asafa has proven on three [3] occasions that he can not, and I repeat CAN NOT run major final successfully. I repeat FINALS not heats or SF. This has got NOTHING to do with Asafa’s running the circuit.

And…if Asafa was not physically ready to run under 9.89 he would not have produced 8.70 in 4x100m and 9.72 in 100m - but he DID.

In the final he pooed his pants and the whole world has seen that. That is my argument and is strictly addressing Asafa’s performance in the final.

And anyway it appears that Asafa doesn’t know why he failed anyway.

Didn’t you read what S. Francis told Asafa about that? Scroll up and the quote is there.

Charlie,

Give it up PJ. You can’t argue with someone who has the certainty born of never facing these high level competitive realities as you and I have on so many occasions.

This is your weakness. Let’s face it. Why otherwise would you try to bring up “credibility” issue in? And for your info I have competed at national highest level winning national titles and been coaching for 15 years… So, please spare me of “I have been there and done that who the hell are you?” I respect you and share the same opinion with you on many subjects but I do have my OWN opinion and do not need to depend on your judgment of Asafa’s performance because you have watched the race from Canada and I have watched it from Australia and we can form our own opinion and interpret Asafa’s performance the way we see it fit.

Everyone else will know what they read or hear in the news and use newspaper quotes to ‘prove’ that we are wrong.

:smiley: :cool:

22

I’m not getting into this argument, but Powell had significant rest time after his 100m before he ran that blistering relay leg. If his limited preparation caused him to not be ready for that final (which is what CF is saying), that wouldn’t preclude him from running extremely fast times several days later.

23

YOU said “Being not very confident person when it comes to the big meets and with huge expectations of the whole world Asafa painted himself into a mental corner and could not get out of it”.
I don’t buy the theory of Asafa beeing mentally weak.

In circuit, i mean meetings + championships + media and business.

Nobody disputes the fact that Asafa is able to run 9.89, he did 9.82 his his last pre-Games race and 9.87 (under the rain) in his first post-Games race. The point that you miss is that Asafa was not able to run 9.89 on the fourth race in 2 days (after heats and quarter on day 1 and semi and final on day 2). Such tournament requires specific training and tactic that Asafa hasn’t put together so far. You will argue that he ran only 10.02 on day one. But his 60m intermediate time was 6.35, that’s sub 9.80 pace! Asafa can run it every week-end in-season, but not twice in 2 days. The relay was some 5-6 days later.

Second point you miss is that confidence comes from preparation. Asafa didn’t lost in Beijing because he is not a championship guy (you imply that he will never be in saying “he can not, and I repeat CAN NOT run major final successfully”), he lost because he was not prepared adequately.

Maybe you can scroll up yourself and dig up the conflicted quotes reported by the media. He was supposed to work with a psychologist after Osaka. Whether he did or not, the result was the same.

24

Go to the head of the class.

25

Charlie–

I understand confidence comes from a good preparation, however, how do you know if you have a good preparation?

This seems like a dumb question… maybe it is, but for me and many others I know, training times just don’t line up with meet times. For example, on 6.5 60m / 10.1 100m (European medalist, Olympian, etc.) has a fly 30m PR of >2.80 and generally goes 2.85 or so. EDIT: Also want to note that he is beaten by 10.5-10.7 guys in practice at times as well… a fair amount, too, and he is trying, so it isn’t just a training set-up causing this. Other people I know, using a training set-up very similar to your’s, run .3 slower in training (ie might run 7.0 at best 60m in training then goes 6.7 in a meet) very regularly.

I know you did your own form of HT and things like that, which may have accounted for these things, but as an athlete, I find it hard to generate confidence from running times in training that, even while they may be a substantial TRAINING personal best, are well behind meet personal bests. How do you generate confidence when you are not sure what you are going to run?

Example, how much money would you have put on Ben going 9.72-9.75 (assuming he ran through the line) in Seoul? Life savings? Even $50k on it? Don’t want to put you on the spot, but I am not sure of anybody THAT confident in what they are going to run except for some ambitious athletes.

26

PJ

So, because Asafa is psychologically very strong person with a champion character but with inadequate training and history of injuries he was prevented, not prepared or not ready enough to run two races on what probably was the biggest night of his life?

Gee, right, spot on!

This argument we are having is over 0.06sec or slightly more…or even better, after the SF he dropped of by 0.04sec…and could not possibly improve by 0.02 in the final due to the troubles he had during the prep!?

As I said, I do agree that he was not 100% ready and that he notoriously dislikes running rounds however in your respectable opinion, if I may ask, what percentage [out of 0.06 sec.] could we assign to Asafa’s physical and what to his mental mismanagement?

(We all do know that Asafa eased off in the SF [9.91] but courageously busted his guts 2 hours later running poor 9,95)

Furthermore, the argument “Asafa does not like rounds” does not stand ground that much when it comes to some third grade Italian meets where Asafa, with no competition around him, in a warm up runs a WR and backs it up 20min later with another world class time surprising even himself! However, it is suddenly a critical point for him when he is competing in a major competition (WC or OG).

Gee, I wonder why?

One would say, yes in Italy he was well prepared. I say - yes he was.

But in a major championship he has proven thus far that he can not back it up. 1, 2, 3 times, right?

Now, one can say well, Asafa was not ready the first time around. Or one can say, oh well Asafa was not ready second time around, and you and Charlie :wink: can say he was not ready the third time around all due to physical “issues” and bad timing…

A clueless person who searched all of the Internet for that crucial proof could perhaps foolishly say - hey S. Francis with no clue and out of blue said to Asafa ‘there is a lot less pressure now so you can do whatever you want’.”

Pressure, what pressure? He must have meant physical pressure, right?

Well, at least that came from Asafa’s coach, who was there with him, and who knew what was going on with Asafa throughout that day and I dare to say whole 2008 season. Not from me, a “coach-potato” who never had a nerve or physical ability to compete at elite level.

My bad! :cool:

27

Goodness - What a B.S. thread this has turned in to be!

Is it that hard to believe Usain turned up to the O’ly prepared to run 4 x 200’s and 4 x 100’s and relay runs! And that Asafa was only really prepared to run 2-3 100’s and the relay?
And is it too hard to believe that the bicep/pec injury greatly affects Acceleration out of the blocks but is not too bothersome when running upright and free?
Try a few hard 20’s out of the blocks and tell me its not pushing tightness from the pec/shoulder area!
then try a efe 20/20/20 and feel the difference in the chest/shoulder area!

I hope Asafa has a injury free yr this yr, puts out the required races before the Worlds and lets his feet do the talking.

28

To run 4 races, not two.

I have already replied : In meetings, there are 2 races in one day (1 warm-up and a half because the lap time is short), in championships there are 4 races in 2 days (with 4 warm-ups because the lap times are longer).

Again, mental approach issue was pointed out by his staff after Osaka. If Asafa worked with a psychologist, 1) it was useless because the result in Beijing was the same as Osaka 2) maybe the psychologist was not competent, OR maybe he didn’t worked with a psychologist because maybe 1) the staff changed opinion 2) anyway the problem was not adressed because the trick might not be in Asafa’s head.

29

do we know who that is?

30

It is hard to compare various hand times. I know mine are very generous compared to others but I build that in to my idea of conversion and it works well for me indoors (where there is no wind to screw with results one way or the other. I then would build in a margin for outdoors. IE in 1987, I times Ben from stands in times I figured would give him 9.80 and predicted 9.85 to allow a bit of wiggle room. and in 88 I figured 9.75 or so and predicted 9.80. in each case he was in the middle somewhere.
When you have a substantial training background over years, you can look back and see exactly at what point you performed at your best and then try to match that point the next time to be at your best again. That’s what planning is about. Read my next general post for more.

31

WHY I GET PISSED OFF WITH GLIB PRONOUNCEMENTS.
1: It is the coaches job to look at peaking failures by any athlete and see what could contribute to a solution rather than throwing up their hands and saying: “Well that’s just him. He’s a fuck-up and nothing can be done about it.”
2: A psychiatrist cannot set the necessary training parameters.
WHAT DO WE KNOW ABOUT ASAFA?
1: He can run incredible times and win against anyone at certain times if there are no more than two heats.
2: He runs his fastest times after a set number of races which has varied, based on whether or not he races during the winter period.
3: He has never reached that known number of races by the time he needs to peak for the big one.
4: He goes in an out of the circuit based on injuries every year.
5: He has never performed well in the final of a 4 round event.
WHAT MIGHT WE REASONABLY SUSPECT?
If I were to tag a psychological label on Asafa, it would be OVERCONFIDENT and not the other way around! Why?
It appears that his behaviour during training periods far removed from meets would indicate that he thinks talent is all he needs and he just doesn’t take his prep seriously enough and doesn’t listen to his coach. This is the period where most of his injuries and problems seem to come from.
An example is the injury he sustained because he got drunk enough to fall down the stairs. Another example is ignoring the lifting method he had done all along and trying supra-maximal negatives in the bench that led to the pec rupture. (the tear was horrendous and the MRI report was read to me over the phone by someone involved at the time)
WHAT COULD BE DONE TO COMBAT THIS??
He should not be kept away from competition/reality checks for prolonged periods, so the winter comp period should be expanded IMO.
HOW CAN HE BE READY WHEN IT COUNTS?
He MUST reach the set number of races that indicate a top performance and the way to best insure he gets them in is again to compete in the winter period.
REGARDLESS OF ALL ELSE, WHAT COULD BE DONE AT THE GAMES THEMSELVES TO MAKE THE BEST OF WHATEVER HE COMES IN WITH??
If he is short of work, he needs to taper more than anyone else to get his tone as low as he can get away with. Round one is a joke for him and even round two wouldn’t take much. By having lower tone (and lower performances in those rounds), he can have a better chance of having good tone in the SF and Final without going over the top.
IF YOU HAVE ANY DOUBT ABOUT THE EFFECT A PROPER TAPER CAN HAVE ON RESULTS, PLEASE SEE THE TAPER DOWNLOAD AVAILABLE FROM THE SITE STORE. This was shot with a real person over the actual available time frame and you can see the results as they happened.

32

This site is a whole lot better when people say what they think. This is one of the best threads so far because someone has actually disagreed with Charlie and had the courage to back it up, even in spite of the usual leaping to his defence.

One of the problems of championing and making money from a system is that anything that disagrees with it is assumed a threat, wrong or somehow justified and incorporated within it. Furthermore everyone’s problems can be solved by this system. On this occasion it happens to be that Asafa’s big races would be fine with Charlies preperation.

Don’t get me wrong I like the ideas, which is why I visit here but I cannot ignore the mass of either experience or research that I’m exposed too. eg : A significant study (think it was post atlanta) covering 200-300 olympians found that physical preperation was only one of a multitude of different factors that had an effect on an athletes confidence. Suprising findings eh ?

Anyway happy jousting, for the record Sevastacrator I’m in agreement with you. Lets have more of this, questioning is a good thing.

33

of course
it’s my opinion that asafa isn’t a lion but we have ever the need to see the whole picture.
the whole picture of asafa says as that in these years the jam have had ever problems before great champs (excepts athens when he did wrong the road to final (remember QF against greene)

what can we say about usain?
i remember a great QF in osaka ad a poor final (of course, in relative terms).
In 2007 was usain a lamb and in a 2008 a lion?
do bolt suffer of a dual personality?
and we can say the same thing about tyson (remember helsinky)

34

By definition, forums are an invitation for disagreement. Sites specifically designed for sales and promotion of a system don’t have them and they certainly don’t provide the content found here for free.
That said, it’s no surprise that one who disagrees may be disagreed with in turn.

35

what can we say about usain?
i remember a great QF in osaka ad a poor final (of course, in relative terms).
In 2007 was usain a lamb and in a 2008 a lion?
do bolt suffer of a dual personality?

I would take Bolt’s age into account and lack of experience. In 2007 he was only …19?? He was [two years back] still a developing athlete, and perhaps still growing. Let’s not overlook that.

Thanks Richie. We must keep Charlie sharp :wink:

36

Brings to mind the Lance Armstrong quote:

“Jan (Ullrich) loses the tour not in July but in December.”

37

Thie “dialogue” has been interesting and entertaining. I agree with Charlie & PJ, but in some respects I don’t disgaree with Sev. I’ve been fortunate enough to speak with Bolt and Powell (several times) and by comparison, Asafa is a child. By that I mean I think it would be a lot cheaper to rent space in Asafa’s head than in Bolt’s which may be an issue if gamesmanship or other kinds of negative distractions have played any role in Powell’s big race disappointments to date.

There was that great quote from Asafa’s coach, Stephen Francis, early last year relating to Powell growing up in the countryside a fundamentalist Christian, his mother actually telling him he didn’t even need to train because his speed was a “gift from God”. Now there’s a head case scenario if ever I’ve heard one. That, along with his immaturity (he’s just a really lovely big kid) may account for some of these continual accidents (pec rupture most notably).

But my own experience coaching at every level with athletes with a disability through to Olympic finalists has proven to me that “confidence comes from performance” - be it in training, time trialling or racing. If all the right work has been done and all the racing and resting has been slotted into place, the mental strength will be developed in synchrony with the physical.

38

Agreed. Confidence comes from performance and performance comes from preparation!
Someone needs to further the biblical lesson to Asafa: “The Lord helps those who help themselves beforehand ahead of those who pray during and wonder after.”

39

That’s like the joke about the guy on his roof during a flood.

A boat comes by, and he says “God will save me.”

The water gets higher, and another boat comes by, and he says “God will save me.”

The water gets really high, and the authorities send a helicopter, and he says “God will save me.”

So he drowns. In heaven he meets God, and says “I trusted You to save me.”

God says “Are you kidding? I sent two boats and a helicopter.”

40

This religious thing makes me remember Jonathan Edwards, only that if I remember correctly he used “divine influences” as a motivation for training, rather than a way to justify not training.