regarding bolts start i believe that he has run some of the, if not the fastest 10, 20 and 30 meter splits ever (with no reaction time factored in) however factor in his inconsistant reaction time and he was behind in some races. one could argue that reaction time is part of being a good starter which it is, but in terms of actual sprinting time to get to 10,20,30 etc, i think bolt has best splits (anybody care to post them to double check)
AC
That would be Manute Bol, right? Yes, he is very tall 
I will provide 2 pictures later showing that Bolt and Thompson were almost even, Bolt took the lead after 30m.
could you imagine Manute Bol running a 100m dash. I think by the 20m mark he would have broken a leg.
I also saw the photos that PJ refers to which are directly from the side and you can then see Bolt ahead at 30m.
this sequence is misleading and the direct side-on shot tells a different story about the 30m.
From the 3 video views i have for the 30m i was able to come up with 3.77 for Thompson and 3.78 for Bolt (i drew a orange line on the 30m markers which were not visible enough on the low resolution for these pictures). Note that paralax issue is upmost important on those intermediate time analysis, i only post data when i can get several views of the race, and front pictures can me really misleading.
I stand corrected about place at 30 but the time was the same as I figured at 3.78 vs 3.80 for Ben in both Rome and Seoul.
Even though Thompson has a slight advantage at the torso, more of Bolt’s body appears to be in there and he has a straighter body angle.
Thanks PJ. This helps.
I have seen BBC videos only and was under impression that RT was slightly in front at 30m mark. But what happened between 30m and 40/45m was just incredible.
All of this is interesting, but not exactly what I was trying to get at:
Bolt–more emphasis on weights in the offseason, short-long in main season. Close enough to the field at 30m to blow them away later.
Asafa–as much accel development work as Ben in addition to more overdistance than John Smith (until this year).
Linford–there’s that picture with him doing squats off a bench with 700 pounds on his shoulder.
My feeling (which also applies to drob and me with almost identical weight programs) is that if you are well over 6 feet, you need to personalize training more than shorter runners and train a bit differently. “We” get MaxV almost for free once we get our legs extended, but we have to work more on the power side, because it doesn’t come as easy to taller individuals.
See Obikwelu: Terrific top end, but almost always coming from behind, because he doesn’t get out of the blocks with the field.
Thoughts?
And that’s part of what I was trying to get at. It was the acceleration AFTER THE START that killed everybody.
Nice work 
Never realised that Churandy’s start was that worse, he made up a whole lotta ground :eek:
I find this extremelly interesting, what about training volumes for taller individuals? I have seen that many tall guys respond extremelly well to high intensity - low volume work, i.e. look at the high jumpers.
I think everyone needs individualized training at the higher levels regardless of height and proportion rather than height will determine acceleration to a great degree.
How tall are you then? I am running at a much lower level than you, but when I compare my splits and sessions from some of the elite guys I have trained with I lose a lot more to them over the first 10m than in max velocity type work, and I am 6’2". Lewis you could argue is a prime example of what you are trying to get at??
My thoughts to the letter.
Some of the issue may actually be at the lower levels, where athletes develop and many coaches seem to have one-size-fits-all training. If you have a taller individual on a tempo-based program in high school, that probably equals a 400 runner, not a pure sprinter. Because of this, we might have a couple of Usain Bolts in the USA, but they’re running 400.
This sequence for the first 20m tells a different story.
Fantastic detective/coaching work by PJ, who, by the way, also is responsible for providing the earlier Bolt sequence which I think Ikh credited me for. I will post some more Bolt pix in “analyse this” but perhaps the old debate about the merits of Triple Extension can also resume after I posted a couple of new pix here…
