That’s awesome. Squats cure cancer!
So nobody else picked up on Mike Boyle’s statement that “52 guys ran
sub four the year after Bannister”?
Yes, I noticed that as well.
A similar thing has happened after Bolt’s performances in Beijing, i.e., faster times by the very top guys and faster qualification times in major championships.
In the first 12 months after Bannister, only one person broke 4 minutes.
It is not the principle people are criticizing but, rather, the fact that Boyle is off by a factor of 10 as to how many did it.
Were qualification times really that much faster? Not much so it seems and Tyson was already running faster before Bolt’s Beijing performance, but a hamstring injury kept him from finishing out the season. Powell ran slower than his eventual SB and way off his PB.
I see! I didn’t realise that! 
I am pretty sure Berlin’s times were a different story, i.e., after a year people realised what was up and prepared for it the best they could. And I am not referring to Gay and Powell only. Whether it was a coincidence or not remains to be seen. There was a post with comparisons, if someone can find it again…
That’s the one, thanks! 
Berlin was slower than Beijing in spite of Tyson Gay not being around (in good health) to significantly skew the Beijing averages even further down.
I haven’t done any analysis, but judging from the link robin1 posted, the slight difference of 0.01 for 8th fastest time in 2009 says a lot, since it was a post-Olympics season. Additionally, the drop vs. 2007 is huge!
Does it matter with it being post-Olympics? Nearly all of the top females and most of the top males set PRs this year. In 2005, Helsinki had horrendous weather, which caused problems, but a lot of people set PRs as well (WR by Powell, for example).