Dear Wejo and Rojo, this picture should be picture of the year

Plus you need to stop on the bag, it is not like a finish line you can run through. Sliding into the bag allows you to stop on the bag. DM's base stealing analogy is way off the mark.

Diving in baseball was a bad example, although players dive all the time and it works out for them.

But should Christian Smith have stayed upright as he crossed the line in '08? He crossed the line only a fraction of a second ahead of Robinson, and his body was horizontal. Upright, he would have lost.

When a running back is trying to hit the corner of the end zone, do they run or dive? Players dive to make overhead catches, dive to break up a pass, dive to make tackles. Or when you are playing goalie, do you move your entire body over to stop the ball instead of throwing your body at it? Why do soccer players make last-second slide tackles to recover the ball? If you are trying to cover a certain area in the quickest amount of time, athletes dive.

I don't see why running should be any different. Sprinters lunge/lean at the line. If you don't, your coach will eat you alive.

And, most "dives" on the track happen when runners are leaning as hard as they can and topple forward. You don't dive in track because you'll get raspberries all over your body, but if that weren't the case I think you'd see it all the time.

How many of these guys are really running any more?

Really strange

photo wrote:

1, Donald Sage, Stanford, 3 minutes, 42.65 seconds. 2, Chris Mulvaney, Arkansas, 3:43.03. 3, Josh Spiker, Wisconsin, 3:43.16. 4, Alan Webb, Michigan, 3:43.23. 5, Adrian Blincoe, Villanova, 3:43.32. 6, Ryan Hayden, Villanova, 3:43.82. 7, Charlie Gruber, Kansas, 3:43.86. 8, Grant Robison, Stanford, 3:44.04. 9, Dan Wilson, Connecticut, 3:44.46. 10, Scott McGowan, Montana, 3:45.40. 11, Sean O'Brien, American U., 3:45.52. 12, Brandon Strong, Arizona State, 3:46.43

Webb and Blincoe still in it.

cfinn wrote:

http://web.archive.org/web/20041208230227/http://www.mensracing.com/photos/ncaaoutdoor02/ncout114.jpg

awesome, i was actually looking for this picture the other day and couldn't find it.

Maybe MythBusters should look into this lean/dive thing.

You make a decent argument, but goalies are using their hands to block balls, not their chest. The goalie also doesn't already have momentum carrying them forward. I think a dive is really a glorified, mis-timed lean. I guess if you lean too early, you may as well dive since you can't correct your mistake, but diving is not a good practice and doesn't actually help.Smith was a bit physically tied up with Robinson in the trials race, so that might have contributed to his fall. If diving were really efficient, sprinters would do it on purpose. A lean is all you need.

Great pic, but I heard that the 1:54 winning time was a state record. If it's true, that state record is pretty weak.

look at it this way.. you can only accelerate when in contact with the ground, as soon as you dive you are slowing down immediately

Independent George wrote:

If diving were really efficient, sprinters would do it on purpose. A lean is all you need.

Your above-average 10 second sprinter manages about 22.5 mph coming down the line. So yes, a dive will most likely not surpass that speed.

However, a 1.44 800 runner averages 17.2 mph. Depending on the nature of the finish and the speed over that last 10m, a dive may very well be exactly what is needed. The OP photo boy who ran 1:55 was between 15.5-16 mph.

Chris Solinksy running 12:55, averaging a fraction over 14.44 mph may very well dip into 12:54 territory with a well-timed dive.

Mountaineer wrote:

Great pic, but I heard that the 1:54 winning time was a state record. If it's true, that state record is pretty weak.

State Meet Record, not state record. Apparently the state record is 1:49

David Neville's dive to take the Bronze in Beijing was impressive...

http://home.theundergroundcity.com/_David-Neville-Dives-at-finish-line/video/302860/22344.html

Wheating's dive may have booked his trip to World's, no?

http://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=10150234508304618&set=a.119747119617.95263.18725919617&type=1&theater

S on Chest wrote:

David Neville's dive to take the Bronze in Beijing was impressive...

http://home.theundergroundcity.com/_David-Neville-Dives-at-finish-line/video/302860/22344.html

Thanks for the link! I can't think of a better demonstration of the value of a lean/dive.

To the person who said (yeah, I know it was a while ago) that you decelerate whenever you're off the ground: your *center of mass* decelerates, yes; but you can redistribute parts of your mass so that some of them accelerate! That's what Neville (in essence) did.

Also, every time you take a running step you're spending some time in midair...