Rojo's quote on Bolt - MAJOR flaw in reasoning.

I also think it's poor to compare bolt to lebran, and basketball even showed it. The heat won the championship in a grudge match over seven games, almost not even making the finals in the previous series, that is with a star studded team. The best guys in basketball showed to really be not that much better then the other teams. The fact the championship was so close, showed that the other players themself were good and deep in talent.

I would argue as science and technology has advanced. the playing field has in fact leveled out. There are no secrets, everyone does training of similar effect and athletes are marginally separated. That's why US distance running has become so good, why the Heat isn't able to be that much greater then the other teams. Everyone is better, performing on higher, but about the same levels, with small variation.

If you wanna talk evidence, all evidence suggests usain bolt does use enhancements. Statistics of other sports show how unlikely it is, likely freaks of the past in subjective sports like baseball/basketball were just competing against weaker competition. That's why they could be so good.

What about the Monaco press conference? Why would Jeter not want to talk about steroids? Honestly as an athlete if you found out other girls were beating you cause they cheated, it would be a sigh of relief. If she was innocent she would use this time to bring the issue to light, and have an actual stand to do so, people would listen. That would even be in her best interest as there are odds her competition around her cheats. But instead she doesn't want to talk about drugs, and wants to ignore the issue. Natural human reaction would be different, unless she has something to hide.

Go on this girls Twitter account, she tweets like 20 times a day, that shows she likes to talk and has an opinion. Why go silent?

Goliath wrote:

But the whole point is that because of Bolts height he has a higher natural potential compared to everyone else. It is his height plus his success as a youth that make it plausible that he has remained clean while running out of this world times.

3 of the last 6 WR holders have been under 6 feet.

flawed_comparisons4448 wrote:

I also think it's poor to compare bolt to lebran, and basketball even showed it. The heat won the championship in a grudge match over seven games, almost not even making the finals in the previous series, that is with a star studded team. The best guys in basketball showed to really be not that much better then the other teams. The fact the championship was so close, showed that the other players themself were good and deep in talent.

Is this a serious post? You're saying that because the Heat didn't easily destroy the 2nd best team in the entire NBA that that means they aren't that much better than the other teams? The SECOND BEST team in the NBA should be very good shouldn't they?

Did you see what they did to the rest of the teams? They had a 30 game win streak.

This is like saying Bolt isn't that much better than all of the other sprinters because he only beats Blake and Gay by a step or two.

The bell curve wrote:

ttc wrote:

Disagree.

If being 6-5 was that huge an advantage, then without question, the world's best sprinters would all be my much taller than current. Minimum 6-3 avg... minimum. Sorry, bad logic & I say Rojo's reaching into fantasyland on this one.

Actually he is not. It takes other factors besides height to be a world class sprinter. There are a hell of a lot more men under 6 feet tall than over so your chances of finding a shorter person who has all of the other factors is much better than that of finding someone 6-5 who has them.

No. If you're 6'5" you're told you're too tall to be a professional sprinter. That is, until Bolt showed his stuff.

Not many grow this tall though, let alone with a lean sprinters' build.

Domestic Cat vs Cheetah?

12ft 1500lb sprinter vs a 6ft 200lb one?

Size matters, but with everyone within 10% of each other, the correlation doesn't shine through. It's there though, it's always there. As long as proportions fit just right.

Skater wrote:

Domestic Cat vs Cheetah?

12ft 1500lb sprinter vs a 6ft 200lb one?

Size matters, but with everyone within 10% of each other, the correlation doesn't shine through. It's there though, it's always there. As long as proportions fit just right.

No. Completely wrong. Size doesn't make the difference between a cheetah's speed and that of a domestic cat.

lslwl wrote:

Height is not a factor AT ALL.

I think this is obvious to anyone who watches sports, yet there are a few who want to believe in fairy tales and look for any excuse there is to justify Bolt's greatness.

IMO, it isn't a matter of if Bolt gets caught, but when. Hopefully that will put to rest the failed notion that 6'5" has any advantage over 5'11" in sprinting.

I believe Ben Johnson was on track to run Bolt-like times, he had already shattered the WR, and he is what, 5'10"??

ttc is dead on when he says that if height were an advantage, it would have been proven before Bolt's time. Think about how widely contested the 100M is throughout world history. You think all of a sudden in 2008, it was discovered that height has an advantage in sprinting? Come on.

Look at the fastest guys throughout NFL history. Darrell Green, wasn't he like 5'9"? Crap, if he had an extra 8 inches on him he would've run under 9 seconds.

Blake tested positive for a stimulant that wasn't even on the banned list nor on the supplement label when he took it. If you want label him a doper well fine but many of us out here know better.

I was thinking about this today.

Or you could get into an Ivy. You're a 935 guy or you do EPO, run 905 and go to Harvard. Think about how much more money you make as well. If I could see some high pressured parent doing that in the US then I thought it was way more likely for third world countries.

Many have emailed about child hood prodigies doping like M. Jones. My counter to that would be she did get a 4 year ban (or was it 2) for a missed test in HS and had to hire Johnnie Cochran to help her. So she very well could have been drugged all along.

That was sort of my argument, "Unless you think Bolt was already doped at age 15 (which is possible based on Marion), it seems possible he'd clean now as his improvement is unheard of from age 15 to 24.

Thanks for the defense.

That being said, I may have to write another article on how he could be doped as well.

WE've been getting a ton of emails. Many think LebRon is totally doped on HGH.

I think you are helping my case here.

To me the fact that Bolt was able to develop into a 100 guy is so abnormal - shows he's a freak. Yes most 100 guys don't improve. But we've got a guy everyone thought was going ot be a 400 guy running the 100.

Rojo's "article" is some of the worst writing I have ever seen. I haven't been to this site in a few years, but I'm amazed to see that the Brojos' Ivy League writing hasn't improved at all. I'll stop back in another few years to check on these morons.

Wow. Clearly not many scientists on this website.

If height were an advantage in sprinting, the place it would be the most obvious would be in youth sports, junior high, etc. Since height requires no training, the tall kids would have an immediate advantage, which would fade as they got older and the difference between people's heights evened out (it's much more likely to have a "freak of nature" kid who grew earlier than everyone else). Also, the advantage would be diminished the farther up the ranks you went as non-tall sprinters evened things out via training, doping, and other manners of leveling the playing field.

It's been a while since I've been to a youth track meet, but I recall during the years of my youth that the 100m and 200m were not dominated by the basketball team guys. Most good sprinters looked more like a typical wide receiver: smaller, more compact.

Also, who are the fastest guys on the court in the NBA? The 7' tall centers? I don't think so.

English - do you speak it? wrote:

Rojo's "article" is some of the worst writing I have ever seen. I haven't been to this site in a few years, but I'm amazed to see that the Brojos' Ivy League writing hasn't improved at all. I'll stop back in another few years to check on these morons.

For some reason, I don't believe you. This site is very addicting. Not sure how you stayed away for that long unless you didn't have an access to a computer? Carry on...

Bottom line: Anyone running under 9.90 should be under high suspicion for drugs. The human body has not evolved this much since the 1980s. Think about it.

Human limitz wrote:

Bottom line: Anyone running under 9.90 should be under high suspicion for drugs. The human body has not evolved this much since the 1980s. Think about it.

What if better athletes have come along between then and now - evolution would have nothing to do with it.

Bolt is so obviously dirty. Seriously, some of you try so hard to convince yourselves that these guys, and thus track and running, aren't a sham. Drugs in every sport are pervasive. If you are elite and winning you are cheating. To state otherwise publicly is to forfeit all credibility.

I hope you are right that Bolt isn't a doper, but I'm skeptical of the argument using LeBron and Tiger Woods, who I think could be dopers. How are we to know since the NBA and PGA have totally worthless drug testing? If you want to see someone who improved since going pro, check out Reese Hoffa in the shotput.

clearly you don't understand the point.

The point is that Bolt is 6'5 yet has the leg turnover of a shorter man. The longer your legs are the more effort it takes to move them quickly, which is why many taller athletes are not as fast. Or did you fail high school physics? If you swing a pole around, the farthest end of the pole will be moving faster than the end you are holding. And the longer the object is you are trying to swing, the greater energy is required because of the increase in speed. What Bolt has is that he can move his legs as quickly as shorter sprinters, thus he gains more ground with each stride.

The same applies to LeBron. No other basketball player with his height and weight can move like that. That's one of the reasons he's so good. When Tony Parker goes on a fast break he's hard to block because he's fast. When LeBron goes on a fast break he's hard to block because he's not only fast, but also coming at you like a wreaking ball.

science lesson wrote:

What Bolt has is that he can move his legs as quickly as shorter sprinters, thus he gains more ground with each stride.

No. How much ground Bolt covers has NOTHING to do with his leg length. Perhaps it's you that failed high school physics?

OK Mr physics professor, are Bolt's legs moving faster because they are longer, or because they are more powerful? The answer is more powerful. Power has nothing to do with leg length. Yet Rojo and others contend that Bolt's height is the reason he is faster. If that were the case, we would see it all across the board in sports, but we don't. Height does not correlate to speed in sports. Power does.

I have mentioned in previous posts that if Bolt is a clean "freak of nature", it is more likely to be because his body naturally produces muscle building growth hormones at an freakish level, which would account for his otherworldly muscle power. If it were merely a height and leg length issue, he would not be the only tall sprinter who was ever any good. Being 6'5" with long legs is not THAT rare.

So that brings me to the statistical likelihood...what is more likely, that an unusually powerful tall guy is that way because he is the only tall guy in history who was also blessed with powerful muscles, or because he is taking advantage of 21st century pharmaceuticals?