I’m somehow puzzled. No split data I know indicates that Mo reached top speed anywhere after the 60-70 segments. That fits to his 60m performances as well. If I’m wrong, please post data, I’d like to learn sg. new.
Probably there are some 10.20 heats that show this pattern, but then I’d call it some effect of holding back acceleration.
In a very subjctive way it always seemed to me that Asafa accelerates very long into the race and really gets away from the pack after 70, 75m.
But data indicated that “the rest” simply hit their (lower) top speeds before Asafa did.
Additionally we should not forget that split data analysis thends to get a little questionable when it comes to accuracy: even if we go down to the 1/100ths of a second (see PJ post),we do not split below 10m and we do not know changes concerning important factors like wind during race etc.
After all the track is not a scientific labratory and will never be
All of Mo’s split data I know indicates that he decelerated very slowly, which might be caused by Smiths way of training - as far as we know Mo trains speed endurance with quite a lot of intensive tempo.
That leads to the question what caused this quality - training or physical constitution (like genetics etc).
We can only speculate on that, but personally I belive that from his physique he could have developed to a “higher top-speed athlete”.
Smith training formed his race patterns. If Mo trained “strictly Charlie” maybe he woulf have reached 60 0.05 Secs earlier, decelerated faster (like Ben) and ended same way somewhere between 9.75 and 9.80.
But that is only speculation and you can tear me to peaces for that
Fully agree, “trying” can cause the reverse effect, especially with inexperienced athletes.
I only pointed to the fact that a 10.00 guy reaches his 10m/s, 11m/s etc. point before the 10.25, 10.50 sprinter etc. and still accelerates longer into the race.
Willingly holding back is a thing for heats and will result in the 10.00 guy ending up at 10.25.
But I agree: of course trying too hard usually makes athletes “tight” and results in sub-top performances as well.
I’m too. If it took Mo 85m to reach a 0.84 spilt he would not have won any medal
Maybe it’s just a misunderstanding: If Mo reached somewhere around 11.8 m/s and then has 3,4 splits at 11.5-11.7 he is not accelerating after 60m, but very slowly decelerating. I think we all agree that this was his main “virtue”…
Totally agree with your insiteful conclusion. In fact those in the know dispute the the splits collected by A Ito at Tokyo 91, the splits suggest that the cameras and sensors were not placed accurately…( not exactly at 10m segments).
Actually, the only questionable mark was the 70m one in Tokyo, since in all the races, it shown decrease and increase of speed before and after this mark.
Am I missing something here, or how does a guy get to 60m in 6.39s and STILL has enough left in the tank to go faster till the 80 - 90m mark?
What kinda speed do you need to get to 60m that fast in the first place and still go faster?
Another thing. If MO didn’t get to top speed before he pulled a muscle in Edmonton (around the 70m mark) and still managed to hobble/maintain to a 9.82!!! (not with a gail force wind behind his back one might add), what kinda speeds would he have been capable of?
We also seem to forget one factor when comparing fastest splits: WIND. One may have noticed that in MOs fastest races the wind behind him were’nt as most of the other WR holders e.g 9.79 +0.1, 9.82 -0.2, 9.80 +0.3. Fair enough he didn’t consistently drop these times as Powell seems to be doing and so perhaps we didn’t get the chance to see a peak MO with the kind of wind Gatlin had in his 9.77s race or any of Powell’s 9.77s. But take MOs fastest splits in these races and put a +1.? or +2.0 behind it and we can only speculate at the results.
His 9.82 for example. With a +1.? - +2.0 he could’ve been the first to ‘limp’ to a new World Record!!!
He doesn’t accelerate after that. Somebody misspoke or what presented incorrect data.
Another thing. If MO didn’t get to top speed before he pulled a muscle in Edmonton (around the 70m mark) and still managed to hobble/maintain to a 9.82!!! (not with a gail force wind behind his back one might add), what kinda speeds would he have been capable of?
He did reach top speed.
We also seem to forget one factor when comparing fastest splits: WIND. One may have noticed that in MOs fastest races the wind behind him were’nt as most of the other WR holders e.g 9.79 +0.1, 9.82 -0.2, 9.80 +0.3. Fair enough he didn’t consistently drop these times as Powell seems to be doing and so perhaps we didn’t get the chance to see a peak MO with the kind of wind Gatlin had in his 9.77s race or any of Powell’s 9.77s. But take MOs fastest splits in these races and put a +1.? or +2.0 behind it and we can only speculate at the results.
Look at what Greene did with the wind. It wasn’t all that different. He has said in interviews that he doesn’t think wind helps him and maybe even hurts him. I mean why look at only wind and not the track hardness, humidity, temp, etc.? Also, if we go solely off wind readings what do you think FloJo would have run if she had +2.0 instead of 0.0 for her 10.49? Wind gauges are not created equal, but I am sure others can attest to that.
His 9.82 for example. With a +1.? - +2.0 he could’ve been the first to ‘limp’ to a new World Record!!!
+2.0 he may have pulled up even sooner–you never know.
Wind behind reduces air resistence- as does altitude. even though it’s below the alt asst threshold, Edmonton is 2000 ft and it makes a diference, prob about 1mps at least.
I know the wind was probably not 0.0, but that is the official wind reading from the IAAF. My point is that the wind gauges aren’t the most reliable thing in the world and it’s kind of lame to try to differentiate between legal winds when we aren’t sure if everything was being accurately measured anyway.
Well dramatically might be too strong, but if you compare Ben’s WR with Tim, Asafa or Mo you’ll see that Ben loses in every 10m split between 60 and 90m about 0.01 seconds compared to the three others. I only talk about spilts to the 90m mark, after that we know “holding up hand, slowing down” etc.
Carl ran his 9.86 with a 60-90 in 2.54, Ben 9.79 in Seoul 2.56!
So you can say that Bens “after 60m” performances were weaker than in any other sub 9.80 WR sprints so far (hand up or not).
On the other hand his first 60m of course were completely out of this world and nobody came close to it yet (except for Mo’s widely discussed 9.82)…
That is why I believe we either saw no talent like Ben yet (except for Mo probably) or the different training approaches of the other sub 9.80 WR sprinters trainers (intensive tempo) did not make anyone run close to 6.33, but “faster” on the last 40m…
I think the drop for Ben was at 80m, not 60. In any event, what IS interesting is that the main benefit of the harder tracks is in the first 30m (where you see the biggest time differences) so the final segment times MAY be the result of energy savings at the beginning. Aside from a questionable .82 in Tokyo- top absolute speeds have NOT improved on the new tracks, or even in most cases been matched, though speed end looks good.
This is Ben’s electronic details for 1986 1987 and 1988 personal bests
30m / 30-60m / 60-80m / 80-100m
3.86 + 2.61 + 1.71 + 1.77 = 9.95 Moskva (blocks slipped)
3.80 + 2.58 + 1.72 + 1.73 = 9.83 Roma
3.80 + 2.53 + 1.69 + 1.77 = 9.79 Seoul
Charlie might be the best person to comment on this progression, but the last 20m segement in Seoul should have been 1.73 at least, seeing at this year by year progression.
From serious biomec reports, the best 30m ever is 3.79 by Surin (Sevilla 99), nobody bettered 2.53, the fastest 60-80m segment was by Lewis in Tokyo 1.67, and the 80-100m by Lewis 1.70 in Stuttgart 93 semis (delayed accel). There was no biomec report from Edmonton unfortunately. This give us perfect race of 9.69 but it doesn’t work like this!
Interview of Powell, published today in L’Equipe:
“I’d like to run one day in … 9.72. I’ve often heard that i relaxed too much during the last meters and this costs me few hundredths, that i could run around 9.74. I think that’s a huge rythm anyway. 9.70 is maybe the human limit. I’m not sure that one can do better.”
From the tracks themselfs? If thats so, then all other longer distances be run faster than average on them same tracks too! Any way of finding out stuff like this?
