Hi Pierre Jean,
I am intrigued both by the fantastic performance of LeMaitre on the weekend, (10.04 at 19 makes him one of the fastest juniors of all time) but also by the way he achieved it running only 42 steps, an enormous display of elastic power for a kid of that age.
Anyway, whilst I am aware that you don’t coach LeMaitre I was fascinated by the stuff you posted several years ago on the French training methods and in particular the work of Jacques Piasenta whereby an active approach was taken to maximising stride length with bounding, footing on the polish bench, limited traditional strength training (45deg leg press, Snatch and quarter squats were mentioned) and foot strengthening work. 10 bounds for distance was a test that the used and the athletes (including Arron and Perec) seemed to excel in it and also had enormous stride lengths (44.7 strides for Arron over 100m and 42.8 for Perec). Are you aware if Lemaitre is training with the same methods and what sort of performances he is capable of with his bounding?
Christophe’s stride length has slightly increased since last year, 2.70 vs 2.67. Many factors outside specific training can be envolved, especially at such young age, it seems he is 1cm taller, and he is still taking benefits of general work over all the aspects of his performance, since he has not much training years and density behind him.
Bounding performances can be deceptive even for those long striders. Christine Arron and Marie-Jo Pérec both had 2.50-2.52 stride length at max speed (even though total of number of steps was different), but Christine’s height was slightly shorter and i believe Marie-Jo had longer leg length. I don’t know for Christophe (however his early performances at LJ and HJ done at interclub don’t indicate that the guy knows how to jump, but who cares anyway), but Christine is not a good jumper. Even with a 10.73 speed, her former coach Piasenta used to say that she would barely long jump 6m but would break her back while landing. She has a long and flat foot, she likes very soft spike shoes so that she can use every articulation of her foot and ankle. Even now, after a hip arthoscopy, she has no problem to sprint using strides over 2.50m interval cones (i really mean it’s sprinting, not bounding strides), but producing a jump on a board with conversion of horizontal into vertical velocity is an other story, and landing is the most dangerous.
Are their any videos of this type of work being performed by the French sprint groups PJ? Is it mostly done on the track or on grass? With double leg bounds are landings done is sand? What are some 3 and 5 bound numbers?
Charlie assuming he has only had one year of formal sprint training what could he do with a good coach with good facilities after a few years judging by his physiological markers for the sprints etc?
In some isn’t this the most dangerous part of his career? He’s running fast off of limited training and the temptation is to ramp up training to reach the next level. IMO, how his coaches handles this will be critical.
Of course but even if he knocks a half-sec off the 200 it doesn’t change much for him but if he improves at all in the 100m it can be huge for him. Likewise, I am concerned that his coach might look for too much now that he’s had this big result.
My perception is that that he found the perfect competitive setting for the 10.04 run. Championship environment, athletes who could push but not be him if he executed, very good facilities and pleasant weather. Other than maybe gaining a slight bump in mps of wind that may be tough to replicate until next year’s Euro’s.
Well if that is so, it might be best to try only the 200 if conditions are less than ideal. In that case, maybe that is the plan- enter both and then see what event the conditions favor.
Hopefully just one or the other before Berlin.
There is much less pressure on the young man in the 200m. He has set expectations into the stratosphere with his run at Euro Jr’s. A less than outstanding run in the 200m won’t have the same public relations effect, IMO. Yes just one and the relay in Berlin.
Not yet. Today in Castres, Christophe ran 10.20 (w-0.1), winning from Chris Lawson 10.29 and David Alerte 10.34. At 200m, he placed second in 20.73 (-1.1) behind Alerte in 20.65.
Big sun. He said he messed up the start. Was probably tensed to run against the clock, after a week of media fuss about his possible sub10 intrusion, beeing a white, a junior, etc…
I totally agree, and I think this is what has happened with a number of British sprinters that were successfull at the junior level. Especially Malcom Lewis Francis. When he was a junior - he was the fastest junior in the world for two years, and he was only training three days a weak. In the summer, one of those days was sometimes just a competition day plus two training days. Then when he started to compete against the seniors he got beaten and I don’t hink his coach handled that so well. No I can happily train 6 days a weak (sometimes 7) because of the nature of my training, and cause I am used to it. But I think Malcom Lewis Francis probably ramped up his training, too much too soon, at high intensity level, and probably started doing 5 or 6 days a weak. Christian Malcom is another sprinter that was better as a junior than a senior.
