KevinG,
Maybe you were thinking about Dan Steele the 8000pt+ decathlete and US Olympic bobsledder…
That NCAA 400 meter race was awesome. Seeing three young Americans (Steele, Potter, and Harris) going mid 44 shows that the future of American quarter milers is still bright after Michael Johnson’s retirement. The University of Minnesota shows that you don’t have to recruit the number one talent in the world to have great 400 meter runners. This obviously shows that great coaching is so instrumental in churning out great sprinters and runners. Also the fact that they don’t have great weather makes it even more amazing in how fast they run.
BTW, are Adam Steele and Mitch Potter on the US 4x400 meter relay pool for the World Championships? I know that both of them made the final of the US Championships and finish 5th and 6th repectively.
I knew that they were both juniors (as is Jakobsson). Does anyone know if Potter has used his red-shirt year? He has been injured, so this might be the case.
OHSTF:
That session looks to be a natural follow-on to the type of work which Potter outlined on TrackShark. Tempo change within SE, and an emphasis on the the 150m distance.
KevinG:
Based on appearence, I think that Steele would have to shed some mass to move back to the 800. He’s a big guy.
Cheers
Both Potter and Steele redshirted their freshman year.
Come on guys this is basic stuff. His 30m time is not going to tell if he can come through the 100m in under 11 seconds. Could you predict his 200m time from a “flying” 30m so he runs 3.0 not to shabby.
If there is no correlation between the flying 30 and performance potential, why is Lundin not saying the same about Potter?
Steele is an extreme exception to the rule.
It might be of interest to compare not only Steele’s all-time best but his top three all-time performances. How many times has he broken 46 seconds, let alone 45 seconds?
Also the 1:55 was a high school personal best, however, I agree that might be his best event down the road.
30m flying is a maximum speed test, which has a poor relation with 400m… Improvement at 200m can occur without improvement at 30m fly.
From his indoor 600m time, we see clearly that Steele is more a 400/600 runner than a 200/400 runner. From that, 30m fly is even less important for him.
re-AthleticsCoach
About negative splits, what about Michael Johnson in Lausanne’96: 21.9 + 21.8 = 43.68!
Antonio Pettigrew has several fast negative splits 400m runs.
re-Markin in Moskva’80: he surely didn’t covered the last 100m in 10.6. I have never heard any sprinter covering the final 100m in sub11sec. I’ve red that he passed at the 200m point in 21.2 in a 1980 newspaper.
The fly 30m test is indicative of top speed over short distance. It’s value is in what it tells the coach. Since much of this testing was done in the fall, it told coach Lundin that Steele lacked top end speed. Could it be that he addressed the issue and that is why Steele has improved? The guy has run 21.2 for 200 and I think could go faster at this point in times. Clearly he could now break 3.0 in this test. Remember people sat funny things to reporters.
I went back and checked and Steele had not broken 46.0 until the NCAA regional meet. From that point the times started dropping and he broke 45.0 for the first and only times at NCAA’s. I think the temptation to move him up should be resisted. He is young, developing, has just made a huge breakthrough. Find out how good he can be at 400m before taking such a risk. Besides he’ seems a bit large for the 400m at this point.
Regarding Markin, I’ve seen film of the race, and he and Mitchell (Australia) were flying. I thinkthe 10.6 was actually atributed tot he later athlete, with Markin SUPPOSEDLY running 10.8 for the final 100m. Markin and Mitchell were clearly the fastest finishers in that race, and diluated nature of it’s particpants changed it’s dynamics. In any case both clockings seem ridiculous.
Cheers
There is interview with Adam Steele over at Trackshark which give a little more insight into his preparation.