Track and Field; It's ON!

Well; I thought I’d start a thread! (I’m sure there will be some individual ones, as I’m sure there will be some cool stuff to discuss; there always is!)

To start:

Anyone see the 100m Semis?

My favorite is Asafa Powell, but…

As the pic above shows, Usain Bolt looked like he was jogging (literally!) in all his qualifiers, at sub-10second speeds!)

It’s going to be tough for Tyson Gay. The hams are the major “jets” for these guys. Even if his have healed, you have to question how all-out he can go and how the injury is affecting him.

Fractions of a second often make the difference between first and last.

Post thoughts and what events you are following!

Mufasa

Jamaica will go 1-2 in the 100.

My favorite is Bolt. That guy ran a 9.92 in the race you have pictured, and shut down with 30-40 meters left.

How demoralizing must that be for, say, the chinese sprinter who is busting his ass to get a 10.1?

Tyson is done for. The hammie pull back in July is still nagging him, and it shows.

I forget the young kids name from the US - the one who wears the sleeves - but I think has has a decent shot at the bronze.

Bolt just ran the easiest 9.85 in history. These guys are all insanely fast genetic mutants, yet Bolt makes them look slow.

I’m still backing Powell in the final though.

The 4x100m should be good. The US has a very strong team with Gay, Dix and Patton.

If Jamaica doesn’t mess up the baton exchange they should have it in the bag though.

9.69 for Bolt. Wow. New WR. MJ’s 200 record is going down next.

Congrats to Walter Dix getting the bronze.

Good thing NBC showed a blowout basketball game instead of this.

What was the previous world record in the 100? 9.69 sounds ridiculously fast.

[quote]Noodle_Arms wrote:
9.69 for Bolt. Wow. New WR. MJ’s 200 record is going down next.

Congrats to Walter Dix getting the bronze.

Good thing NBC showed a blowout basketball game instead of this.[/quote]

[quote]Regular Gonzalez wrote:
The 4x100m should be good. The US has a very strong team with Gay, Dix and Patton.

If Jamaica doesn’t mess up the baton exchange they should have it in the bag though. [/quote]

If he’s got it in him, Gay will have plenty of motivation to redeem himself and get something out of this past year.

[quote]Damici wrote:
What was the previous world record in the 100? 9.69 sounds ridiculously fast.

Noodle_Arms wrote:
9.69 for Bolt. Wow. New WR. MJ’s 200 record is going down next.

Congrats to Walter Dix getting the bronze.

Good thing NBC showed a blowout basketball game instead of this.

[/quote]

9.72 set by Bolt himself earlier this year in New York. Barring injury or suspension for you know what, I see Bolt breaking 9.5.

[quote]Damici wrote:
What was the previous world record in the 100? 9.69 sounds ridiculously fast.

Noodle_Arms wrote:
9.69 for Bolt. Wow. New WR. MJ’s 200 record is going down next.

Congrats to Walter Dix getting the bronze.

Good thing NBC showed a blowout basketball game instead of this.

[/quote]

9.72, also held by Bolt lol

[quote]Noodle_Arms wrote:
9.69 for Bolt. Wow. New WR. MJ’s 200 record is going down next.

Congrats to Walter Dix getting the bronze.

Good thing NBC showed a blowout basketball game instead of this.[/quote]

Even in this race he shut it down with 30-40 meters to go. If he went all out, I don’t doubt he would have broken 9.6

Beast

Bolt is the king of genetic freaks. Sprinting is incredibly competetive, and has probably the most gifted athletes in the world. Yet he smokes them so easily, its ridiculous. Also amazing how young he is.

DAYUM!!!

The guy looked like he was trotting to the finish AGAIN!

Wow.

Mufasa

Bolt is insane, hes a genetic freak I would love to see what sort of training hes done but to be honest I doubt he works any harder than the other guys out there.
He’s just gifted.

Since this seems to be the thread where everyone is talking about Bolt, I going to repost what I wrote in the thread I started here, mostly because I want to hear Regular Gonzalez’s opinion on a 9.5

predicted over a year ago that somebody would break 9.7 in the 100. I was right, but I thought Powell would do it. He choked again and didn’t even medal. He did do better than Gay, who didn’t even make the finals.

Bolt won in 9.69, Richard Thompson was 2nd in 9.89, and Dix took the bronze in 9.91. Powell was fifth in 9.95.

Haven’t seen the video yet, but despite Bolt’s amazing time that was a pretty disappointing race for what we were expecting.

(After finding the video)
That’s amazing. He had a mediocre start, and he shut it down with 25m to go and still finished in 9.69.

This guy has many records left in him before he’s done, and that shouldn’t be for a number of years.

http://www.nbcolympics.com/trackandfield/resultsandschedules/rsc=ATM001100/index.html

Check out the reaction times. .165 isn’t very good. Dix, Thompson, and Powell had over 3 hundredths on him.

Also note the wind. 0 m/s.

If Bolt runs a full race, gets a good start, and has a 1.8-2.0 m/s wind behind him, he is going to run an amazing time.

According to the track tables, a 2.0 m/s wind at that altitude would provide a .094 second advantage. Cut a couple hundredths off that reaction time. Train to get out of the blocks quicker, as even with a good reaction he is still slow out of the blocks, and he actually has the potential to run a legal 9.5.

[quote]tedro wrote:
Since this seems to be the thread where everyone is talking about Bolt, I going to repost what I wrote in the thread I started here, mostly because I want to hear Regular Gonzalez’s opinion on a 9.5

predicted over a year ago that somebody would break 9.7 in the 100. I was right, but I thought Powell would do it. He choked again and didn’t even medal. He did do better than Gay, who didn’t even make the finals.

Bolt won in 9.69, Richard Thompson was 2nd in 9.89, and Dix took the bronze in 9.91. Powell was fifth in 9.95.

Haven’t seen the video yet, but despite Bolt’s amazing time that was a pretty disappointing race for what we were expecting.

(After finding the video)
That’s amazing. He had a mediocre start, and he shut it down with 25m to go and still finished in 9.69.

This guy has many records left in him before he’s done, and that shouldn’t be for a number of years.

http://www.nbcolympics.com/trackandfield/resultsandschedules/rsc=ATM001100/index.html

Check out the reaction times. .165 isn’t very good. Dix, Thompson, and Powell had over 3 hundredths on him.

Also note the wind. 0 m/s.

If Bolt runs a full race, gets a good start, and has a 1.8-2.0 m/s wind behind him, he is going to run an amazing time.

According to the track tables, a 2.0 m/s wind at that altitude would provide a .094 second advantage. Cut a couple hundredths off that reaction time. Train to get out of the blocks quicker, as even with a good reaction he is still slow out of the blocks, and he actually has the potential to run a legal 9.5.
[/quote]

Here are his splits for the last 30m:

70-80m (0.82 sec)
80-90 (0.83 sec)
90-100 (0.90 sec)

If he ran through to the line he probably could have gone 0.83 secs for the last 10m. Based on this, with a better reaction time I would say he is already capable of going very close to breaking 9.6 in perfectly still conditions.

I don’t really trust those conversion tables, but add in favorable wind conditions and he is already capable of going well under 9.6.

This will probably seem crazy, but I honestly think it’s possible he will eventually break 9.5.

What are you predicting for the 200m?

I think he will probably break 19.5, but I don’t think the WR will go down this Olympics. If he stays injury free he will eventually take that record as well though.

I want him to get the world record in the 200m, then go and get the 400meter then we’ll have to test his DNA and find out he is not from earth.

I think I saw him go to plaid and achieve ludicrous speed for a second there. Bolt is the troof!

[quote]Doug Adams wrote:
I think I saw him go to plaid and achieve ludicrous speed for a second there. Bolt is the troof![/quote]

Wow a Spaceballs reference!

[quote]Regular Gonzalez wrote:
Here are his splits for the last 30m:

70-80m (0.82 sec)
80-90 (0.83 sec)
90-100 (0.90 sec)

If he ran through to the line he probably could have gone 0.83 secs for the last 10m. Based on this, with a better reaction time I would say he is already capable of going very close to breaking 9.6 in perfectly still conditions.

I don’t really trust those conversion tables, but add in favorable wind conditions and he is already capable of going well under 9.6.

This will probably seem crazy, but I honestly think it’s possible he will eventually break 9.5.

What are you predicting for the 200m?

I think he will probably break 19.5, but I don’t think the WR will go down this Olympics. If he stays injury free he will eventually take that record as well though.
[/quote]

I saw his splits late last night, too. He actually ran .82 from 50-60, 60-70, and 70-80, before starting his celebration. I’ll have to check, but I don’t think anybody’s ever maintained a .82 split for more than 10 meters before, with Powell and Greene both doing it only from 50-60.

You can figure that he lost .06 seconds with that celebration, and that’s being conservative. At 6’5", he will always be slow out of the blocks, but his reaction time can definitely be improved. Just with those things he’s already down to 9.60. If he gets a favorable wind, can improve that first 20-30 meters, gets a good jump, and runs to the line, then I think a 9.49 is possible. I would normally say that there are too many “ifs” there for that to happen, but at only 21 he has a lot of races ahead of him to make it happen.

The 200’s going to be very interesting. Bolt’s been running in the 10.2/9.4 range. The extra 100m work he’s been doing is sure to help that first split, but again, he is 6’5" and I just have a hard time believing that he will ever run a great curve. Nobody in the field can touch his top end speed, and nobody can maintain like him. I still think he’ll run in the 19.5’s. He may have a chance to break 19.4 eventually, but I think MJ’s record is still safe for a while.

Dix is also going to be fun to watch in the 200m, which is his better event. Dix is 5’10" and a great curve runner, he could easily come off the curve ahead of Bolt. He also has the top end speed to threaten Bolt a bit. I don’t think Dix will win, but if Bolt makes any mistakes it is possible. I think the biggest thing holding Dix back right now is his weight. I think if he would have given up football a littler earlier he would be in a much better position now. I think he’s looking pretty soft and could probably shed 10 lbs without losing significant muscle. If Dix had been running pro for a couple of years, I would give him better odds. He’ll never touch Bolt in the 100, but I think he can be another 9.7 guy. With the right training and experience, I think Dix will probably be Bolt’s biggest competitor in the 200, and should be running in the 19.5’s by next year.

What do you think about Powell? I really feel bad for him, and Tyson Gay too. Powell is without a doubt the fastest man to never win an Olympic medal, and at 25 he may be on the downward part of his career the next time the Olympics come around. Through in the fact that I think a 9.69 is the best race Powell is capable of, and with Bolt around now his chances of ever winning a major championship are slim. It’s too bad. He’s a good guy but he just can’t get his head straight for the big races. You could see it before the race even started. Bolt was out there dancing, perfectly relaxed, and having fun. Powell was stiff as a board and just looked frightened standing there by his blocks.

He probably trains with bolt, imagine what he has seen him do on a good day I would be scared shitless too going up against him. He must have been thinking ‘there is no physical way I can beat him’ with that in his mind he doesn’t stand a chance.

Hopefully he can win in the 100m relay, but America is really strong. Although gay is injured so who knows.