Asafa Powell Unplaced In Sprint

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KINGSTON, Jamaica, Jan 30 - Jamaican Olympian Bridgette Foster began her 2005 outdoor athletics season with a victory on Saturday but Athens teammate Asafa Powell was humbled and Olympian Sheree Simpson suffered an injury.
Foster won the women’s 400 metres in 53.84 seconds here at the fourth Queen’s Track and Field Meet at National Stadium, with Sabrina Smith second in 57.06.

Simpson, a member of the 4x100m gold medal relay at Athens, pulled up with 50 metres remaining in the race and was removed from the field on a stretcher.

Powell, fifth in the 100m at Athens, cruised to victory in the 400m heats but was not a factor in the 400m final, won by Kimani Williams in 47.41 seconds.
Kim Collins of St. Kitts was second in 47.75 and Chris Williams, 200m silver medallist at the 2001 World Championship, was third in 47.79.

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Huh? Asafa doing a 400m? How does that work KK? Charlie?

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It’s definitely old school. But Tellez had his 100 guys (Carl, Leroy) race 400m pretty solid (very low-46sec for both before Tokyo 91 WCh) about 10days or so before peaking for 100m titles.

Mike Agostini, who won the 1954 Vancouver Comm Games 100 yards, also used to do something like that ( :stuck_out_tongue: he never stops telling me) back then.

It’s about forcing the recruitment of minor muscles, more spindles, etc into the act of sprinting.

But can you imagine the look on Asafa’s face when the big fella was told he had to run 400? And the look when he was finishing? Would have been worth the price of admission. :smiley: :stuck_out_tongue:
kk

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According to his coach, last year at this time he had done no top-speed work, only accelerations and over-distance. I guess running a 400 fits into this, but why run it in a competition?

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From a recent speach by Stephen Francis:
"How is this speed endurance built? The first step is to build general speed endurance. This develops the ability of the athlete to run distances over 60m at high speed. There are many ways to go about doing this. Personally, I like to ensure that the athlete is able to run a very fast 300 meters. How fast? Well, an athlete who wants to run 12.90 should be able to run a 300 meters time trial in at least 38.00 seconds, assuming that she has 100 meter speed of 11.70 to 12.00.

The athlete who aims for 12.4’s or 12.3’s should be able to run 300 meters in 36.0 seconds, a time which comparable to the world’s elite. My experience suggests that being able to meet these types of times over 300 meters indicates that the athlete possesses more than enough speed endurance to meet the demands of 100 meter hurdling."

That’s about female hurdlers, but the 36sec at 300m he requires for them (for example Bridgette Foster) is no joke! The 400m races are part of this philosophy.

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I am pretty sure this isn’t the case which is why I asked.

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Tellez told me the same story about Carl & leroy running those 400m before the W.C.
He also said the reason for the 400m is to build strength (not strength as in conditioning, but strength as in weightroom strength.
Carl also added his 2cents, he said “the short sprints work certain muscles and the longer sprints work the others.” So I guess everything gets worked.

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First off, last year Asafa opened up with good 100, then good indoor results, so the prep is different this year. Why? Second a 36sec 300 doesn’t equate to a 53.84- and a 48sec 400 by Asafa? What’s the relevance? Who trains Simpson?

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Look at the last part of the quote by S.Francis. I quoted that because 36.0 for a 100m Hurlder is very fast, for example WR holder Donkova never ran faster than 38sec, was she able to do it faster isn’t the question here, the main thing is she didn’t need to run faster.
Now they are running 400m, that’s not 300m it’s obvious, but i see it as an extreme choice of overdistance for S. Francis.

36.0 doesn’t adequate to 53.84 but they have no 400m specific endurance which allow to finish decently the last 100m of 400m. Taking in account that Forster is able to run 11.10 at 100m, under 23sec at 200m (her 200m PB is over 23 but it was done in the nineteens), close to 36sec at 300m, the speed curve decay leads to a not so exceptional 400m. Not many 400m runners doing 36sec at 300m can run 11.10 at 100m.
Herb, if it isn’t the case which is why you asked, then i didn’t understood your question. S.Francis was talking about his speed endurance training strategy, and says he starts with GENERAL speed endurance, which refers for him to 300m races, and apparently to 400m races in a extreme point. Note that it isn’t new for them as in 2002, Brigitte Foster did a 55.71 400m the same season she did 12.49. In any case, 53.84 SEEMS a major improvement compared to 55.71, conditions may defer of course, especially for non-specialist.

Simspon is also coached by S.Francis, though i heard that there was some split at some point last year, so don’t know exactly how is their relationship now.

Concerning Burrell in 1991, he told journalists that he took rest after Zürich and did tests 400m in 46.6 and 300m in 33.2. It was some days before Tokyo, so everyone here are similar infor from different sources! :wink:

Pat Connolly used 400m and even 800m competitions with Ashford and with Allyson Felix last year as purification races, so the aim for her is quite different.

The explanation given by Kitkat is very interesting. I know some coaches who start with 400m because “Marion Jones did it”, not knowing why. Flo-Jo started her 1988 season with several 400m, which were horrible, she once opened with 22.9 and finished agonizing in mid53, beaten on the tape by an obscure Nigerian. 5 mounth later she anchored a 48.1 for US team in Seoul…

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My question is more in regards to why there is a shift from last year’s successful prep for Asafa Powell. There are many ways to prepare but I’d be VERY cautious when prescribing 400m runs close to competition (within a week) I saw Ashford run a 53 sec 400 (apprx) with little warm-up before Helsinki in 1983- with a Hamstring tear a few days on in the 100 meters. This is hard to assess as she’d been hurt by an idiot jogger stepping in front of her in training at UCLA a few weeks before that. Flo Jo and Marion did their 400s months before their peaks.

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… or maybe Asafa did “invisible” 400 at training last year at the same period ?

About Ashford, she did 23.40 for 200m before Helsinki and could barely walk the day after. She did 400m in 55" according Pat C (you saw 53 anyway it’s not near her best) around 4 August while 100m heats were scheduled on 7 August. At this intensity, it isn’t speed endurance but a purification race (i think it’s the term she used), sometimes Ashford would run 800m in 2’20 the day before a race.

Asafa opened last year with 9.99 but more interestingly in 20.10 against strong wind which indicates that SE was already in place. He didn’t improved much at 200m over the season while his best 9.87 was set later was it in Berlin or Bruxelles?

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Last year, Asafa ran a quick 100 in Jamaica before the indoor season started and followed up with a couple of good indoor performances (don’t have them on hand). It would seem as though the plan has changed as it was about the same time last year. Maybe you have the dates of the indoor performances?
As for Ashford, I don’t care how fast you should be, doing a 53sec 400 with literally NO WARM-UP AT ALL, just tied up her spikes and went, is a bad idea- I was there and saw it (and didn’t see Pat there so I don’t know that this was how she wanted it done). I never saw Ashford do this anywhere else at GP meets etc, but I didn’t see her big meet prep anywhere else either.

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AFAIK he only had a few appearances in the 60, no 200m; an opener (which was his SB) in NY in 6.56 (Feb., 6th) and then a 6.60 in Budapest (March, 5th) which made him win his heat, but he dropped out at the semis in a (for his standards) poor 6.71

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[QUOTE=Charlie Francis]Last year, Asafa ran a quick 100 in Jamaica before the indoor season started and followed up with a couple of good indoor performances (don’t have them on hand). It would seem as though the plan has changed as it was about the same time last year. Maybe you have the dates of the indoor performances?QUOTE]

I can’t find the pre-indoor 100m you are refering to. Nothing in my statistical source, in any case if he did so it wasn’t good enough to be worth mention in stats we have! (Are you sure it was a 100m in official competition?)
Here is all i have:
6Feb NY 6.56
5Mar WIC 6.60, 6.71
1May Santo domingo 20.10 (w-1.7)
12Jun Spnaish Town 9.99 (w+1.8)
13Jun Spanish Town 20.46 (w+1.2)
25-26Jun Nationals 10.36, 10.30, 9.91
and so on until season bests:
3Sep Bruxelles 9.87 (+0.2)
19Sep Monaco 20.06 (+0.7) and day before 9.98 (w-1.6).

re-Ashford story, yep strange. BTW i heard a coach accusing her backward stride cycle beeing the source for this injury, while he didn’t knew about the crash and other personal affective problems Pat C. still reported in interviews. Looking at her career, Ash didn’t seemed more injured than anybody else, at least much less than the athletes that coach trained! Backward cycle or not 10.76 and world class 1976-1992. Back to 400m, many sprinters see it as a punition including Ashford and really few like it. I join Kitkat’s comment when he imagines Asafa’s face, S.Francis group may had a bad day in Kingston!

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Powell got injured in that semi and I have a feeling that no indoors are the real difference between last season and this one.
I can’t remember him running a 100 in Jamaica before indoors either.

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Maybe I’m loosing my memory about Powell last indoors.
Re Ashford, I remember the situation so vividly because I remember thinking that this 400 without any apparent warm-up was odd, to say the least and I remember looking for Pat connelly and not seeing her. Then, after the injury, I mentionned this 400m run and my suspicion that it contributed to the problem to Brooks Johnson. He got very mad and told me I didn’t know what I was talking about and that this was perfectly reasonable preparation. It was then that I remembered an athlete from my track club in Toronto, Clive Bariffe, who had worked with Brooks at Florida State, who told me of Brooks telling them all to do a 400 in spikes as their warm-up! He was constantly injured and only broke through his senior year after he told Brooks to piss off and did his own training.

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Sad story. There are different warm-up patterns, but surely you get warm after a straight 400m but doesn’t seem th best way to go into a workout or a competition. East German did a complete warm-up before doing 3/4 of the distance before the competition, never straight from cold state. However, Marie-Jo Pérec did a workout with Wolfgang Meier the day before a European cup and i’m sure it was the source of her injury which prevented her to compete: 3x120, 3x30, 1x60, 1x270m, all at submax intensity and the 270m was run at 12.5 speed (because 12.5 x 4 = 50sec for 400m), this weird distance wasn’t the usual 300m Koch used to run, Pérec was afraid to run it and made a deal with Meier and managed to get the distance reduced to 270m. Next day she announced withdrew at the start of her competition warm-up.

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Well somethings must be up regarding these pre-indoor 400m races because Veronica Cambell ran a 400 in Arkansas last weekend, 52 mid I belive, and I believe she is supposed to run this weekend? So we’ll have to see what happens…

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The story at the top of this thread is somewhat misleading.

The races at meets in Jamaica at this time of year are time finals. Asafa was drawn in heat one, while Kim Collins was drawn in heat 6. Asafa jogged around the track (literally) for the 48.80. Collins on the other hand, placed second in a race won in 47.20. The second place in Asafa’s race ran close to 51.00 seconds.

Asafa did run a 100m in Jamaica at the same meet last year. Actually it was really a 60m time trial as he was due to be running at the Millrose games the following week. He was automatically timed at 6.62 into a -4 headwind and stopped at the 100m at 10.38.

Neither Asafa, Brigitte or Sherone will run indoors this year.

One of the reasons for them running the 400m competitively at this time of year is that the Jamaican local season is relatively short. It will ends in early April this year. Being Jamaican based athletes it is good politics to have them running during the local season, so most of the races they run will be overdistance races e.g. 400s and 4x4s that correspond more closely to their current training speeds.

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Yes. That’s the 100m I was thinking of- good into a very strong headwind. Why no indoors?