Bolt now eyes 400m world record
Email Printer friendly version Normal font Large font Usain Bolt wins the 100 metres in Beijing.
Photo: AFP
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December 16, 2008 - 7:56AM
World record-holder over 100 and 200 metres, Usain Bolt says that he is tempted to have a go at the nine-year-old 400 metres record held by Michael Johnson.
“Everyone wants to do it. There are no major championships in 2010 so I could go for the 400m record that year,” the Jamaican told BBC’s Inside Sport
“The training for 400m is so much harder but I’m thinking about it,” he added
Bolt on Sunday was named as the BBC Overseas Sports Personality of the Year after his dramatic wins in Beijing where he became Olympic champion over 100 and 200 metres.
In the latter, he shattered Johnson’s 12-year-old world record with a time of 19.30 seconds.
Johnson sliced 0.11 seconds off the 400m world record to set a new mark of 43.18 at the World Championships in Seville in August 1999.
Turning to his Olympic exploits Bolt said: "If you go out there worrying about if you are going to mess up, you mess up.
"There are better starters than me but I’m a strong finisher. I knew I had won the race at 75m, so that’s when I started celebrating.
“I didn’t care about the time. It was the first time anyone from my country had won the 100m.”
At least a couple of issues at play if Bolt does take a serious crack at the 400m:
First: As Nanny has indicated elsewhere, the most successful 400m coach in history John Smith says (if I’m quoting accurately) the immediate future of 400m preparation at the highest level is not speed-based (consider that 11.5sec to 12sec for the final 100m is considered world class 400m split), one reason he has introduced repeat 1km runs during phase one at least of his GPP. Nanny could elucidate on the philosophy behind John’s current programming ideas.
IN any case, if John is correct, it may take a considerable shift in training focus for Bolt to accommodate the higher aerobic threshhold element indicated for 400m success at the WR level.
Second: Bolt will have tremendous speed reserve if he continues training for the 100/200 as in the recent past and may be able to rewrite the rules of 400m preparation if he does go anywhere near the 400m WR.
Here is a list for 10.00 or faster guys who took part to 400m races or relay during that same year, with 60m, 100m or 200m time in reference to the month when the 400m performance was achieved.
With some exceptions, the 400m races were done in January-April before the 100/200 season starts (January - April), athough accel/max speed can be already in place or well advanced from the indoors results (Drummond Christie, Collins). Smith, Lewis and Marsh ran those 400m in 45.x (their lifetime bests) while competing at 100m with good results.
Thoughts?
These are interesting comments from John Smith.
Moving the emphasis to endurance (aerobic) base (as opposed to speed-based?) would lead to more low intensity training, and ironically lead to less conflict with max speed development and/or expression! Here we go again…
Regarding Bolt and 400m, to follow my previous comment, the question is to which point the specific endurance training required for 400m training will alter his max speed/speed reserve.
Not all athletes are the same and preparation should be directed to the athlete’s particular strength. There are multi examples of sprinters who have moved up to break the 400m or 440yard record almost right away from a speed base - Tommy Smith, Otis Davis- or even the very first(and last!) time, Adolph Plummer.
I can’t say definitively how much of an aerobic component was present in Marita Koch’s training in the seasons leading up to her still-standing world 400m record of 47.60sec, but on the face of it theoretically at least, Bolt would seem to have a better crack at the men’s 400m WR (off his speed-based training to date) because there should be more of an aerobic element in a 400m race if that race is slower (eg the women’s 400m).
Yet Koch, who “supposedly” never ran intervals longer than 300m still destroyed the 47.99WR set by Jarmila Kratochvilova who still holds the 800WR. One assumes Kratochvilova had quite a strong aerobic component in her training diet.
Did anybody see the video of Bolt’s 400m down in Jamaica this past season? It looked like he could have gone at least around 44mid right then if he actually ran the last 200m with more than a jogging effort.
on KK’s 44s model - 21+23 = 44.
Bolt could jog a 21s 200m. And, having see him run some pretty comfortable sub 20s before the games, a comfortable 20.5 doesnt seem to be out of the question as the opening 200.
if he could come home in 23, that is 43.5.
Anything is possible, with the amount of speed reserve he has - he just has to have his body ready to run that last 120… you never know
About time…this was predictable…after he breaks the 400 record, he will go for the 800 than the mile…everything is in Usain’s reach…
And as all of us kids are, he’s lazy…nobody wants to do that type of training…400m is freaking hard!! I gotta give props to those who train for this event day in and day out…you guys got balls…
I’m guessing Bolt is being made aware of the significance and difficulty of achieving the sprint treble in any area: Olympic titles, world records. I’m not even aware of any male having won all three titles at the Commonwealth Games level. The Aussie Raelene Boyle certainly achieved it at Commonwealth level, having won the 100/200 in 1970 and again in 1974 before winning 400m gold in 1982 in her farewell race.
And of course another Aussie - Betty Cuthbert - is the only person to have won gold at 100 and 200m (Melbourne 1956) and 400m (Tokyo 1964) in Olympic competition.
History continues to beckon Bolt…and he knows it. Great talent carries with it a (public) burden of expectations.
He mentions toying with the idea in 2010 as there are no major comps on.
Obviously it will be difficult to live up to the 9.69/19.30 in 2009 - will he get near those marks considering his training is already behind schedule?
He and his coach may test the waters in 2010 over 400 and then see what they do in 2011/2012 - whether it is the 100/200 again or 200/400
19.1e = 18.9h aprox, so the standard formula is 2 x 200m ht result plus 3.5sec.
18.9 + 18.9 + 3.5 = 41.3h = 41.44 to 41.54e!!
Still want to keep the exclamation points after 42.9?
It would be interesting to see this modelled based on real data. I would think that there is a high level of bias in this equation due to a lack of 200’s by top performers in the 400. For instance, this does not seem to apply to quarter milers who were outlying 200m guys such as Tommy Smith or Michael Johnson. Just from a casual view point, I also imagine that there would be a rather high statistical dispersion around this result (that is once adjusted for bias), for every MJ and Tommy that doesn’t meet expectations there is a Jeremy or Butch that exceeds them.
True, but the 3.5 sec addition might also be subject to change as performances move into the twilight zone. Also remember that MJ was injured in 96 in the 200 and didn’t get the chance to blow the record away 10 days later in Zurich. He was never physically the same after by all appearances.
