Rojo and Usain Bolt

Future Alcoholic wrote:

I agree with everything you said, but I think you're being trolled. I won't let myself believe that someone with a PhD doesn't think leg length correlates with stride length (given the same amount of force in pushing off). I mean, seriously?

Yeah, maybe. I don't really mind being trolled though, since I like arguing. So if there's any chance he's just a pompous blowhard with some reading comprehension deficiencies, well that's fine with me.

Most of you either have no clue about the effects of size and proportions on speed, or are over-thinking it.

To understand the effect of height (simple being bigger, not just higher) on speed, you need to exaggerate it, and concluden.

From a typical 6ft for a sprinter, imagine a 12ft upscaled version of this perfectly proportioned runner.

This runner would not be somewhere around roughly 200lb, but 8-fold that. Yes, 8-fold. Weight (and thus output power) goes by the 3rd power of height. A 12ft sprinter will be twice as wide, and twice as deep 2³=8.

So here you have Tyson Gay alongside Mr. 12ft/1500lb.

Whom are you going to bet on?

Other example. We all know a lightning quick house cat somewhere. Put it alongside a run of the mill cheetah. Whom are you going to be betting on?

The science: air drag is huge in sprinting. And yes, a tall sprinter has more of it. The 12ft sprinter has 4x as much as the typical sub-10 guy. So how can he be quick, looking like a garage door? Simple. 8x the power. 12ft guy will not be twice as fast, but it sure helps to be big and well proportioned.

The 5% or so extra height that Bolt has on everyone else, let's say a 5% shorter freak of nature twin brother, is still significant. You'd need to do the match, but it's going to be 1-3 tenths I'd estimate.

This does not make Bolt clean. It may make him one of the few men that couple b reak 10 or 20 clean, if he'd been clean until he did. Didn't have the patience and faith for it, I am affraid.

hhxh wrote:

Do you not see the "a"? Are you blind?

In the physics I've used, "a" stands for acceleration, which is a measure of distace-per-time-squared. I would have expected a term for stride length to be, you know, a length.

Ok, just finished up some statistics to go with this plot:

http://ge.tt/3xfBe3m/v/0?c

The average time for a person in the all time top 79 (top 100 with dopers removed) is 9.935. The standard deviation is 0.064.

Bolt's 9.58 makes him 5.56 standard deviations below the mean (which is already a list of the 79 fastest men in history).

What does that mean? Assuming Bolt is already part of the 79 fastest in history the chances that he should be able to run 9.58 are 1 in 1.39 million.

By comparison the chances that someone would emerge from the pack to run 9.84 are 1 in 8.

Even Carter's 9.78 is reasonably probable at 1 in 46.

Sorry Rojo, plenty of people have shown that LeBron James' performance isn't statistically improbable. Bolt's is.

If Usain Bolt was a Nike athlete and Nike had never advertised on this website, Rojo's opinion would be completely different.

trello wrote:

hhxh wrote:

Do you not see the "a"? Are you blind?

In the physics I've used, "a" stands for acceleration, which is a measure of distace-per-time-squared. I would have expected a term for stride length to be, you know, a length.

Ok, you got me. I've been trolled. You were too obvious with this latest comment.

_This wrote:

If Usain Bolt was a Nike athlete and Nike had never advertised on this website, Rojo's opinion would be completely different.

The thing is, rojo knows deep down that bolt isn't clean. I am sure of this. I think your explanation makes sense, or perhaps bolt once granted rojo an interview and he doesn't want to ruin chances of future interviews?

trello wrote:

hhxh wrote:

Do you not see the "a"? Are you blind?

In the physics I've used, "a" stands for acceleration, which is a measure of distace-per-time-squared. I would have expected a term for stride length to be, you know, a length.

My word trello - will this help you get what he is saying?

F = ma = m( d/t^2) guess what the d stands for?

Rojo -

Just read your full argument. Part of it is that Bolt was a prodigy. Since he is the junior world record holder at 200 I thought I'd do my statistics there, too.

Top 25 junior men over 200m (plus ties for 25th place)

Mean = 20.256

Standard deviation = 0.119

Bolt's 19.93 is 2.74 deviations below the mean.

This is something that is not all that improbable. 1 in 78 chance of happening.

By comparison, Bolt's 9.58 has only a 1 in 1.39 million chance.

Oh, and to Rojo's thread - Bolt is dirty; Lebron probably is too, but who cares. I'm pretty sure if 100s of millions of dollars were riding on your performance you'd find a way to get a boost.

Why is Bolt dirty?

Well let's see - the other 9 guys who've broken 9.8 have either tested positive for or were caught purchasing performance enhancers - so there's a 90% experimental probability he is.

Being great young doesn't provide statistical evidence for his progression as more often than not the top talents are already at their physical peak. Continuous progression is more likely in people who aren't at the top while young.

As previously posted - from a sample of people who are already 2+ standard deviations above the mean he is 5 standard deviations above their mean!!

He still has to generate a lot of force quickly and that isn't easier to do with longer levers so that will reduce whatever advantage you think his height brings.

oh and just a reminder 9:58!! 9:58!! 9:58!! - Wake up.

If Usain Bolt is so much of an outlier, then why has yohan blake run 9.69 into a -.1 headwind. He has also run 19.26 with only a +.7 at his back. So 2 guys from the same small island country (regardless of their build)are simply destroying world records at the same time? Yohan blake, at the age of 19 ran 9.93. What other college freshman has run 9.93? nobody in the history of the sport has even come close to that. Does that mean he is a prodigy or does that means he started doping at age 17?

Its just not realistic. you cant take the top 10 guys of all time, give them more steroids than humanly possible and still think that, not only one, but two guys are beating them by 2-3 meters. Its not possible

Rojo -

Go look at the all time junior lists. They are riddled with B-list athletes and future dopers.

I can't see one guy on the junior list at 100m or 200m that went on to win a world championship or olympic gold medal (and never tested positive). Except Bolt.

Walter Dix is probably the best of all of them, depending on whether or not you think he's clean.

The point is, it's probably better to NOT be great as a junior if you want to go on to win gold medals and break world records.

rojo wrote:

I haven't read any of these posts. I'm going to now but did want you let you know I've spent all day writing a column as to why I think Usain Bolt is clean.

http://www.letsrun.com/news/2013/07/how-can-usain-bolt-be-clean-hes-the-lebron-james-and-babe-ruth-of-track-and-field/

How Can Usain Bolt Be Clean? He's the Lebron James and Babe Ruth of Track and Field

This is just embarrassing.

You (and others) seem to subscribe to the "athletes I like are clean and those I dislike are doping" philosophy. Bolt is funny and entertaining: clean. Makh-Daddy is a d-bag: dirty as Ramzi!

hhxh wrote:

Do you not see the "a"? Are you blind?

insightlessness wrote:

My word trello - will this help you get what he is saying?

F = ma = m( d/t^2) guess what the d stands for?

Distance.

And it quite clearly is a function of more than just force, contrary to hhxh's claim, as neither mass nor time is, in any way, shape, or form, constant between short and tall athletes.

The comparisons to Ruth and Lebron are laughable. Ruth was a great home run hitter and a step ahead of his contemporaries. But as others have stated, the record he broke was from the dead ball era and the fields they played on were HUGE. He came along at the perfect time for his skill set. If he hadn't been a pitcher, he may have never been in a position to be "the Sultan of Swat".

As far as Lebron is concerned, he very well could be doped. Ever since high achool. The NBA's PED policy is a joke. He is a dominant basketball player but he's not dominating on a level like Bolt. Boris Diaw was stopping him in the finals. And again, like Ruth, he has come into the game at the perfect juncture. The emphasis on skill has given way to pure athleticism in the NBA. He really doesn't have great point guard skills. He is a good passer for his size and he has great ball handling skills for his size but he is not a point guard. Just check pictures of Lebron from his draft year and now. That's easily 30 pounds of muscle... From where?

The biggest jump in the 100m world record before Bolt was .1 sec.... By a doped Ben Johnson. The next biggest jump was Jim Hines, .07 sec... At altitude in Mexico City. The third largest jump was Mo Greene, .05 sec... Another suspected doper. And you expect us to believe Bolt can drop the record by .11 seconds, the largest jump ever, without doping. He's not Ruth or Lebron or Gretzky (who is a much better comparison). He's not believable.

8 of the the top 10 sprinters under 9.8 are dopers. Considering how vehement Rojo was about Lance Armstrong, it's a friggin' joke that he wuld write an article suggesting Bolt is clean. What a hypocrite.

J Martin wrote:

Just check pictures of Lebron from his draft year and now. That's easily 30 pounds of muscle... From where?

.

Are you saying that only drugs can put 30lbs of muscle on in 7 or 8 years?

J Martin wrote:

The biggest jump in the 100m world record before Bolt was .1 sec.... By a doped Ben Johnson. The next biggest jump was Jim Hines, .07 sec... At altitude in Mexico City. The third largest jump was Mo Greene, .05 sec... Another suspected doper. And you expect us to believe Bolt can drop the record by .11 seconds, the largest jump ever, without doping. He's not Ruth or Lebron or Gretzky (who is a much better comparison). He's not believable.

The fastest run 100m by someone not implicated in PEDs...9.84.

So Bolt is supposed to have cleanly reduced the WR by 0.26. Rojo is an idiot.

not about the face wrote:

So Bolt is supposed to have cleanly reduced the WR by 0.26. Rojo is an idiot.

So everyone running faster than Prefontaine is a doper too then?