Major drug bust from Jamaican trials in 100 meters

Sprint Geezer wrote:

SG - don't agree with you about your rationale, but that's been beaten to death by now.

I've been thinking about it more, and I really think that there's no reason for Bolt to be off the drugs now. Either he was on something untestable in the past, in which case it would presumably be something still not tested for, or he just wasn't ever using. Why stop now, in a Worlds year and just a year before the Olympics? It's not as if he's being tested more than he was last year, is it?

What I think is happening is that he's added some unnecessary weight and is fighting injury, which has screwed with his form to the point that he won't run faster than 9.8 this season. This is all extraneous to the drug argument, except that steroids will make you keep adding weight if you're on any kind of lifting regimen.

I always think doping is over-rated. My hunch is that Bolt simply wasn't/isn't a 100m runner. He's a gifted 200/400 guy who was for a while young enough, lean enough, had good enough form and coaching to do a couple of platinum 100 times. I don't think he'll revisit those times. I imagine he'll chase the 400m record after London.

Maybe Bolt is the future. People have been doing T&F events for around a 100 years and there must be limits. I'm still not sure that T&F is not a small pool of talent which could be bigger, but if we have all the talent there is records may be broken not by degrees but by higgs boson type performances when conditions are perfect.

So there ya go, the men's 100m world record is held by a non-100m runner.

Freelove--

"Either he was on something untestable in the past, in which case it would presumably be something still not tested for, or he just wasn't ever using."

Or, he was on something testable both in the past and now, and for some reason never returned a positive test.

Or, he was on something untestable in the past but testable now, and now he has stopped.

Not saying one way or another, just suggesting other possibilities.

Regarding the injury thing, that is an angle that I have considered, having vaguely remembered that he used to be injured in his late youth...so I went to his wikipedia page, and noticed that he has been "injured" for essentially all of his professional running career, except for 2007-2009: leg injury for Athens in 2004, injury for Helsinki in 2005, hamstring injury for Melbourne in 2006, achilles and back injuries in 2010, back injury in 2011.

This type of injury history is what I have come to expect from very tall athletes who try to perform in power sports with lots of impact--I have seen it before, more than once. So on one hand, you could say that Bolt was able to perform as he did in '08 and '09 just as a result of his health status not getting in the way of his training.

But on the other hand, it is fair to ask why, or how, his health status improved during those years, which were coincidentally Olympic and World Championship years. It is well-known that 'roids and other such PED's speed healing, and the conclusion that he was using during that period is both rational and understandable, if not very convincing in the absence of other evidence.

His injury history is just another piece in the puzzle, although I won't speculate on exactly what conclusion to draw from that history.

Íf we're going to talk suspect sprinting and name Bolt in that discussion, imho it's not so much the fast times that are suspect, but the sudden downfall in form, power and technique and what not. PED's won't let you run faster, but enable you to maximize all of the above by allowing more and harder training.

Bolt obviously didn't put in what he has to to run 9.6 so that can mean 4 things;

He still has those motivational problems he had in 2010, and didn't put in the necessary work (if so...it's over for the lightning Bolt, which I can understand since he hasn;t got sh*t to prove anymore),

He is really injured, and nothing more than that,

He is injured beacuse they put him on the same scedule without the PED's to make that possible,

He isn't injured whatsoever and simply can't train like he used to because he's not 'on the juice'.

You pick...!

Kabayo--

Or some combination of more than one, such as the first and the last.

Meanwhile, no news of further drug busts from Jamaican nationals has surfaced, as was originally predicted in this thread, although the original prediction did not come with any particular time frame...

My comment several months ago: "These top 100m guys who are running the circuit and posting sub-10 times are doing so in an environment of cramped travel, of sleep disturbance, of varying digestive comfort, and of training distortion."

And now Bolt's comment to the BBC: "I've been trying to get a lot more sleep and eating better."

Good for him, that is precisely what he needs to be doing.

And like Lemaitre in 2011 and again in 2012, Blake is now the one staying close to home by hopping around the Caribbean. Mark my words, Blake will soon lay down a shocking time, and people will think that it came from nowhere...but where it will come from will be from good sleep, home cooking, regular training at familiar facilities, all the emotional cues that go along with that sense of home.

Think of all the money he's missing out on. I don't think he cares, he is after the big prize. And he will get it. He will be devastating. Seeing all these guys skip around the world, doing all sorts of miscellaneous activities, and thinking that they will have a long enough span of time closer to the Games to get their act together, I can't help but wonder if they will run out of time, or try to push too hard and, say, miss a critical week of training to nurse an injury or a strain.

I'm hoping that Lemaitre will also lay down some serious times, along with Gay...all those guys staying close to home for the time being. Smart, as long as they get into some low-key, low-pressure meets.