Usain Bolt is inhuman...

[Scott Borre]

Well its almost without doubt that Florence Griffith-Joyner was doping. From average (among elites) to elite among elites in such a short time... unless some technical error was corrected that caused it (which they never claimed), there's little else to suspect.

But whatever. I think that Bolt is legit. He's an amazing runner. His 100m splits in the 200m are faster than some of the Olympians qualifying times for the 100.

[Matt Edwards]

Any idea what his training is like? I read somewhere today, maybe on this site, that Jamaican coaches noted that when their athletes came back from college in the States, that they came back "tired." This leads me to believe that their training has much less volume and much more resting?

[Steven Low]

Originally Posted by Matt Edwards

Any idea what his training is like? I read somewhere today, maybe on this site, that Jamaican coaches noted that when their athletes came back from college in the States, that they came back "tired." This leads me to believe that their training has much less volume and much more resting?

I am pretty curious as well. Hopefully someone can find it.

[Darryl Shaw]

I read a short article in the paper yesterday by a sport scientist who suggested that Bolt's height might be what gives him such an enormous advantage. It went on to say that at 6'5'' Bolt is taller than the average sprinter so his long legs mean that he not only travels further than the competition with every stride but he needs to take fewer strides over the distance.

[Scott Borre]

Yes he's taller. But I'm not sure if this is it. As its rare for tall athletes to run that fast. There's a reason that Randy Moss is a freak.

But even if he takes less strides, this doesn't seem consistent with the running technique of Michael Johnson, where stride length isn't so much where the speed comes from. But it will be interesting to see if the sport starts to move to taller runners (an article I read while posting stated that in the past Bolt was considered to tall, and was told so, partly due to how it was thought to be more difficult for tall runners to get up to speed quickly from the blocks).

[James Evans]

And he's just won again:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport1/hi/olym...cs/7572131.stm

[Craig Loizides]

Originally Posted by Garrett Smith

Let's not forget the women's 100m:



All three medals to Jamaica. Either they're doing everything right, or they've figured out how not to do what everyone else is doing wrong (note in the article about Bolt above where the Jamaican coach said all his runners come back from NCAA schools "tired and mediocre").

Actually, the US women just didn't run well. If they ran the same times they ran at the US trials, the US would have taken 2, 3, 4, 5, and 6. The fastest US time of 11.03 is the slowest in an olympics since 1976 and slower than any world championships except 1987 and 2001. The winners time was very good, but the silver and bronze wouldn't have medaled in a number of olympics and world championships.

Overall, times have been slower since 2001 in the women's 100 than from 1985 to 2000. If anything you could argue that there is less cheating now. I also think track and field performances are closer to the limit of performance than in some other sports (especially swimming) where records seem to get broken every year. It's natural to have periods of higher and lower performances instead of constant new records.

I'm looking forward to 200 final. No one has even approached Michael Johnson's time since Atlanta.

[James Evans]

Originally Posted by Craig Loizides

I'm looking forward to 200 final. No one has even approached Michael Johnson's time since Atlanta.

They have now. 19.30.

[Garrett Smith]

Maybe overtraining and poor peaking is what Jamaica has done quite well in avoiding...

[James Evans]

It's the yams.