From the time and the photo, Asafa seems to be making a much greater effort to come into the season in shape (before the championships for once!).
With everyone, it seems (myself included) learning from Jamaicans to have a longer general prep phase (to the general demise of indoors, it seems), it’s going to be interesting to see what Asafa’s time NOW leads to in August.
Looks to me like Asafa’s season will be THE test of all the stuff that’s been written about Bolt and the 400 training leading into the season.
Charlie?
Well, first off, we know that, for the first time, Bolt did NOT do that in 2008!
He ran the 100m and then prepared for 200m (Short-to-Long at the very least in the SPP Phase and probably in the GPP as well as his starts were massively improved right from his very first 100.) and it worked rather better than before I’d say.
As for Asafa, to me the time doesn’t mean very much at all because any sprinter remotely close to his 100, 200 performances could rattle off a time like that. It’s a matter of pace distribution.
I saw the film from last year and Asafa went out WAY too fast, so I really don’t have any idea if this is better or not. We need to see the race itself.
Just to put it in perspective, I used to argue with Desai Williams about more emphasis on the max speed portion of his races while he preferred an emphasis on the SE portion, an area where he was already better than he needed to be.
In 1984 (then PBs 10.17, 20.29), Desai opened up with a “300” in Provo Utah. He took the outside lane of a 400 race to help the other guys get a qualifying performance. After finishing the 300 far in front in the low 33s and slowing right down, people started shouting to keep going. He reaccelerated, which is really tough, and still ran 45.90s. This, however, was no indication of a 9.70s 100m.
As for Asafa being in better shape starting out, how are we defining not being in shape. The Japanese study showed massive knee tendon stiffness and psoas strength compared to others. How did that happen if it wasn’t through work, primarily through a HUGE number of hill accelerations?
I think there’s been a phenomenon lately that the 400m is the sole indication of condition for any event you run just about. While I would definitley hope that my 100/200 guys can run a decent 400m if I asked it of them, I don’t think it would be an indication of what kind of shape there in as far as it relates to the 100m.
I’m as happy as the next guy that Asafa ran this fast, but I think too many people ignore the injuries he’s had in the past and no one seems to connect the dots as far as his “shape” goes.
Race video on youtube:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gd_wxgdgFlY&feature=channel
Charlie was there a discussion on the Japanese study on here? Could you point me to it please? Thank you.
Exactly right!
Where can I find english summary of the japanese asafa study guys ?
Use the link I provided in the above post.
Thanks !! My bad.
Asafa looks terribly unfit!
he should do either the beep test or 12 min run that’s how you tell if someone is fit or not :rolleyes: 
Asafa looks terribly unfit!
That’s right! A fit person does not wear a watch