Sprint Guys Why Was the Usain Bolt 200 Final So Slow???

Caster Semen.....ya wrote:

Rain!

De Grasse ran 19.81 in the semis but only 20.01 in the final, and he was trying harder. My guess is that Bolt's 19.78 was probably a 19.5 in better conditions.

De Grasse slower performance also shocked me. He was smiling at the end of the semifinals broke a national record and was well under 20.

lol lol lol lol wrote:

The Jamaican male sprinters, in general, have been very off this cycle. Or non-cycle. Bolt's glutes and hams and to a lessor extent quads look smaller this year. I'd suspect reduced or absent doping (Due to increased testing? Paranoia?) for this Olympics have led to times Carl Lewis could have perhaps run on this track, but one could also point to more benign explanations--age, injuries, conditions, etc. In any case this is not remotely close to the Bolt of '08 or '09, or even '12.

It cracks me up what some of you think you can deduce. You might as well open up your dog and consult the entrails. I just pray that your decision making skills do not require anyone other than yourself for the preservation of life and limb.

I think we've all just gotten spoiled by how good Bolt is. 19.78 is crazy fast, but we've gotten used to 19.5 or better. The guy won the 200m in 3 consecutive Olympic games...Can't THAT be enough?

Bolt didn't think it was enough

Let this be a lesson to the morons who said he "jogged 19.7" in the semi.

TAA wrote:

I also don't believe there are aliens at Roswell.

We are not at Roswell. Your government moved us to Wright-Patterson.

Bolt: Was on 19.6x shape with ideal conditions (like the semifinal). No better than that. Rain and -0.5 headwind were the biggest factors for his 19.78.

De Grasse: Was on 19.78 shape. No better than that. In the semis, although he laughed and toyed with Bolt, he did almost his maximal effort, until the final 15 meters. In the final, he wasn´t moving well (knowing that Bolt crushed the field) and didn't run relaxed the final meters.

Merritt: Literally out of gas in the last 50m. No wonder how Michael Johnson did the 400/200 double years ago, with other "supplements" allowed. And I don't know if he's going to be a good anchor for the 4x400 US squad.

Edward: frustrated in the last 30 meters because Gemili passed him, and he didn't see Lemaitre and Martina coming.

Metric Miler wrote:

[quote]Metric Miler wrote:

No, it doesn't.

Just like MJ has been saying. Bolt can move his legs just as fast as the other competitors (stride rate) but he has a massive stride length. This is an extremely rare trait.

Most tall runners move their longer limbs slower but make up for it in stride length, like Schippers.

He doesn't move his legs just as fast, he moves his legs fast for how long they are compared to other 6 5 people. Obviously because his legs are longer they stretch out further. His running technique in my opinion is influenced by his height. That's why he glides more and wheels less, but the bottom line is what I said is still true. Other people run pbs and world leading times when it doesn't matter. Bolt often doesn't beat those times. It's likely he won't in 2016, unless he does it at a diamond league.

source:

!event-list

" I got an average data of angles of falling of Usain Bolt and Tyson Gay in the final 100m of World Championship in Berlin. Bolt’s calculated average angle in 100m with the time 9.58 seconds was 18.5 degrees with the average step frequency (cadence) 4.28 steps per second (257 steps per minute), and Gay’s, with the time 9.71 seconds – 18.4 degrees, and step frequency (cadence) 4.68 steps per second (281 steps per minute). "

Aha...so you're one of the people who actually buys that showboating.Tip: don't look at the faces of these guys when they pretend to get off the gas, but keep an eye on the momentum of what happens below the waist. That doesn't change. They actually don't lose as much as what everybody seems to believe. Those semi-runs were damn near all out runs, especially for Degrasse, but also Bolt burned that curve only to attemting a "jog" at 180m. When Degrasse kept pushing Bolt was forced to do the same.Furtermore: a run in which a sprinter believes he's running "relaxed" very often proves to be a faster run than one in which someone actually puts in a max effort. Best example: Mike Marsh in Barcelona semi.

asker of the thought provoking wrote:

Caster Semen.....ya wrote:

Rain!

De Grasse ran 19.81 in the semis but only 20.01 in the final, and he was trying harder. My guess is that Bolt's 19.78 was probably a 19.5 in better conditions.

De Grasse slower performance also shocked me. He was smiling at the end of the semifinals broke a national record and was well under 20.

Rockstar Games wrote:

Wejo I believe that what really happened (apart from the rain and wind that some claim and surely have affected the outcome) is that during the last 8 years Bolt has made us believe that a 19:50 or under is the norm.

The reality is that a sub 20 200m is an amazing time, Bolt is long past his peak and still could crank 19:78 twice during these championships.

People expect to see 19 low when bolt is running but if you remove him from the last 8 years the best times are from Blake, Walter Dix and Gatlin (19:26 , 19:52 and 19:59) that's it. These are times that should be a LOCK for a gold anytime before 2008. And probably with a big margin too.

Cheers.

Frankly that is just wrong. Bolt ran 19.55 last year in Beijing off a season where he was constantly managing injury.

This year he was in better shape, and had the conditions been warmer and the track dry, a favourable wind etc then we would have seen 19.5 from Bolt again.

His 19.78 or whatever in the semi was relaxed.

I don't know how it isn't obvious to anyone that the whole field was slower (lots went sub or close to sub 20 in the semis) because of the conditions. Compared to the semi I'd say there was effectively a 0.2 second handicap.

I thought Bolt might not be in good form coming into this Olympics, but the ease of his win in the 200M semis showed that he had enough in his locker to beat the pretenders.

Probably in 9.7 form for 100m (with good start and good conditions), 19.4 for 200m?

the answerman wrote:

All the Testosterone at the stadium was used up in the 'Womens' 800.

Are you accusing them of using PEN's; performance enhancing nuts?

It was a sit and kick race.

And the main reason is that JADCO, in the first six months of 2012, didn't carried adecuate testing programs in Jamaica (prior to London Olympic Games). After 2012, Usain Bolt was a shadow of himself, due to more efficient dping controls in his homeland,

"...The Wada investigation comes in the wake of allegations by Renee Anne Shirley, the former executive director of the Jamaica Anti-Doping Commission, earlier this year that Jadco’s out-of-competition testing between January and July 2012 amounted to just 10 occasions in February and one in April..."

http://www.independent.co.uk/sport/general/athletics/wada-launch-extraordinary-audit-of-jamaica-drug-testing-in-run-up-to-london-2012-olympics-8879511.html

So, after 2012, Bolt "only" ran 9.77 and 19.55. He's off the drugs. But another athletes are also with more testing and probably less drugs (Blake, Gatlin, Gay, Powell, etc) so he's still dominant.

The most prominent case is Yohan Blake. After 2012 season "only" ran 9.93 and 20.13.

WetTrack wrote:

Notice that only Bolt broke 20 and almost everyone ran slower by a lot. Wet track. With that said he would not have broke the world or Olympic record today even in perfect conditions.

The whole field ran relatively slow.

Bolt was the actually only one to match his season best (from the semi).

I don't think it was the wet track. I've seen some fast times on wet tracks before.

The wind didn't seem that bad. But maybe it was worse than the measurement read. The temperature wasn't bad.

Maybe the humidity?

Sometimes the air just doesn't feel right. It can feel thick. Maybe that was it.

The women ran pretty fast in the 400 hurdles right before the men's 200.

So the conditions didn't affect them adversely.

The top guys were all coming back from a double and they all had a pretty fast semifinal the day before.

That's my best guess for the reason of the slow 200m times.

I know Bolt and Michael Johnson both broke the 200m record on Olympic doubles before.

But they didn't run sub 20 in their semifinals on those occasions.

What was the air pressure?

Ben L Wrong wrote:

The most prominent case is Yohan Blake. After 2012 season "only" ran 9.93 and 20.13.

Uhh... No. Blake has been running slow since then because he tore his hamstring.

So, after 2012, Bolt "only" ran 9.77 and 19.55. He's off the drugs. But another athletes are also with more testing and probably less drugs (Blake, Gatlin, Gay, Powell, etc) so he's still dominant.

The most prominent case is Yohan Blake. After 2012 season "only" ran 9.93 and 20.13.

Blake injured his left hamstring in 2013, then badly tore his right hammy in 2014.

Re: Bolt, I don't think it's all that surprising that someone who is days away from his 30th birthday might not be quite the same athlete that he was in his early-mid 20's. Plus he's had some nagging injury issues.

Improved drug testing might very well have something to do with the slower times. Still, it would be nice if people would take other legitimate factors into the equation rather than simply explaining away everything as drugs/not-drugs.

Is Van Niekerk on a non-detectable protocol that nobody else in the world knows about?

I heard commentators on NBC and on ESPN, people who don't really follow track closely, saying they were convinced Bolt would get a world record in the 200 final. This despite the fact that there was nothing we'd seen in at least the last three years to suggest that was a possibility.