London Gay's best run?

Gay’s London 100 His Best Yet?

While Tyson Gay has run faster than the world-leading 9.78 he racked up on Friday, it can be argued that he has never run any BETTER.

If one applies the altitude/wind charts found in Track & Field News magazine’s The Big Gold Book, one discovers that London’s 0.4 headwind makes Gay’s time a “basic” 9.76, which equals his best mark ever, equivalent to the 0.9 tailwind which changes his World Champs 9.71 to a 9.76.

The all-time list of adjusted marks is dominated by—surprise!—one Usain Bolt, whose actual World Record of 9.58 (+0.9 wind) translates to a 9.63. Bolt owns the three fastest converted times ever.

Overall, there have been 11 races all-time which converts to sub-9.8, including Gay’s actual American Record of 9.69, which had +2.0 aid. Those times:

Adjust………Actual

  1. 9.63……9.58……Usain Bolt (Berlin '09)
  2. 9.69……9.69……Bolt (Beijing '08)
  3. 9.70……9.77……Bolt (Brussels '08)
  4. 9.75……9.72……Asafa Powell (Lausanne '08)
    =5. 9.76……9.83……Powell (Brussels '08)
    =5. 9.76……9.71……Tyson Gay (Berlin '09)
    =5. 9.76……9.78 ……Gay (London '10)
  5. 9.78……9.79…… Bolt (Paris '09)
    =9. 9.79……9.78……Powell (Rieti '07)
    =9. 9.79……9.77……Gay (Rome '09)
    =9. 9.79……9.69……Gay (Shanghai '09)

what about tysons 9.69

It’s on there. +2.0 (or whatever it was) is worth a lot.

no the other one…with legal wind

Both of his 9.69s are in there, he ran a 9.68w in the US, correct?

Interesting stats KK, thanks for that.

The 9.68 had something like a +4.3m/s wind on a suspect wind guage. I think it read +1.7m/s for every 2nd round heat, and almost everyone was setting big PBs in that round.