Fastest historic untainted 100m times

@Sprintgeezer, what about athletes who go through the trouble of moving abroad only to train with a coach who is tainted? I am not sure times run under said guidance should be listed.

While I do believe sub-9.9 is humanly possible, I am not sure it has even been done cleanly. Most will dope before they break into such times, impatient to reach such times clean at a later peak.

if all you guys spent more time around body builders you'd have a better eye for juicers.

as far as males are concerned, i'm 80% certain mike marsh had a clean career. 90% certain calvin smith had a clean career.

as far as females are concerned, i'm 100% certain evelyn ashford had a clean career. she's the only one.

Bolt was ridiculously fast at a time when his form looked ridiculous. He was basically flailing down the track and setting junior records. With full dedication (no school), world-class professional training, weights and body maturity... his progression makes perfect sense. He's the real deal and the best thing that ever happened to T&F. Geezer should be thanking him.

Anyway, Gay would have been at the top of his list before he got busted so .....

The only person who knows for sure if Bolt is clean is the man himself. If he's dirty very few people know.

If he needed PEDs to run 9.58 then he was on them last year, too. He might be skipping it this year with the extra scrutiny (and he doesn't need help to beat Gatlin). But if he returns in 2016 and runs fast times then we'll have to wait 8 years to be sure there was no positive test.

So it might be 2024 before we know anything about Bolt. Even then, he could end up on Oprah's couch. My guess is we can call him clean in about 2050.

insightlessness wrote:

I kind of always thought Bailey was doped (only sprintgeezer has gradually persuaded me to be open-minded about him); however what about this articles is suspicious? Seems like he worked with him after his 9.84; and from that article it also sounds like the doctor was a good 10 years ahead of his time in terms of applying aggressive rehab. Think Adrian Peterson and RGIII - doctors now really push the athlete leading up to surgery and quickly after to speed the recovery process which sounds like what this doctor did. How is that suspicious in and of itself; now I do also believe these top NFL guys are on some serious drugs as well - but I see nothing suspicious in this.

Ben L. Wrong wrote:

More on Galea threating Surin and Bailey.

http://www.canoe.ca/2000GamesColumnists/gross_jul29.html

I read the article too and the nature of their association doesn't seem all that off in the beginning. If I tore my achilles I would want serious medical help putting it back together too.

The thing that makes it suspicious is that he is following him to meets, a la the infamous doctor following Ben Johnson around to meets, and that he is now working with the whole group. I don't think Dr. Andrews who helped RGIII is helping Alfred Morris for no apparent reason.

Whaaat? wrote:

Bolt was ridiculously fast at a time when his form looked ridiculous. He was basically flailing down the track and setting junior records. With full dedication (no school), world-class professional training, weights and body maturity... his progression makes perfect sense. He's the real deal and the best thing that ever happened to T&F. Geezer should be thanking him.

Anyway, Gay would have been at the top of his list before he got busted so .....

But your saying Bolt's clean, so surely by your reckoning he'd be on top of the list ahead of Gay, busted or not?

Whaaat?: "his progression makes perfect sense"

No, it doesn't.

Bolt is OFF.

Whaaat?: "Gay would have been at the top of his list before he got busted"

That is not for you to say, that is for me to say.

Gay is, and would have been, OFF.

Agreed on Marsh and Smith, although I would put them both even higher.

95% on Ashford for me, only because one can never be 100% certain, not even the athlete herself.

Sprint Guru wrote:

I'll go with "Bullet" Bob Hayes. I would say 100% certainty he wasn't using and if his time is adjusted for the absurd conditions he ran in, then he's a good 9.8.

Impossible to say with 100% certainty. There were certainly roids available when he was competing.

In any case, his time doesn't qualify him, and this was about 100m times.

I agree that he was one of the fastest, if not the fastest, ever.

It seems like you draw a line at 9.84 where times do not become credible beyond that.

It's just a number you like, no good reason for it.

It also looks like you take some people off for who they associate with but are not consistent.

For Obikwelu, he got a Silver in between Gatlin and Greene in 9.86.

He never got another medal in the 100, his second best time is 9.97 and he never broke 10 before or since 2004 in a championship race.

It just looks fishy.

I am pretty much fine with everyone you took off the list and was suspicious of Gay myself.

I like Burrell but don't feel confident about him being clean.

Something seems wrong about Bailey, too. Best ever, with that poor form?

Your untainted list has too many suspicious people on it.

But there is not a good way to sort through them.

It just comes down to opinions and hunches.

Taking subjectivity out of it, here is the untainted list:

Skater wrote:

@Sprintgeezer, what about athletes who go through the trouble of moving abroad only to train with a coach who is tainted? I am not sure times run under said guidance should be listed.

While I do believe sub-9.9 is humanly possible, I am not sure it has even been done cleanly. Most will dope before they break into such times, impatient to reach such times clean at a later peak.

Skater--

Athletes do move around to find what they think is a good situation, which includes coaching. Many come from around the world to participate in the NCAA, including guys like Fredericks, who would not have had the training advantages of BYU in his native Namibia, training advantages other than pharma.

So you can't fault an athlete simply for moving to be with a coach, even if that coach is tainted.

Coaches are funny--some are great, for some people, and some just suck, for some people. Some just suck, absolutely. There is a lot of pseudo-science, superstition, and hokus-pokus involved in coaching, but even that is not all bad, because if an athlete "buys in" and it works for them, although not for the reasons the coach thinks, it can still make the athlete better--maybe not as much better as if the coach actually knew what he/she was doing, but better than without the coaching.

I believe sub-9.9 can be done cleanly, but only just, and only by a very few athletes, and even then only a very few times in a career, if more than once.

For me, a problem arises when their is a doctor in close attention to a functioning athlete. Doctors "treat", via pharma or surgery. Other therapies are done by non-doctors, and are actually very little understood by doctors themselves. What, do you go to a doctor to work on your biomechanics that result in some injury like shin splints? No, you go to a coach, biomechanicist, etc.--you go to a doctor for prescription anti-inflammatories and corticosteroid injections for shin splints.

Ham tear? Why go to a doctor, WTF are they going to do for you, other than surgical re-attachment or steroid/AI/painkiller injections? Nothing. You go to your coach, physio, yoga, massage, etc. The only thing a doc can/will help do is diagnosis, and even that is not done by docs now, it is done by imaging consultants, with a doc signing off and maybe, just maybe, actually looking at and interpreting test results...but that is all only diagnostic, which is after all valuable, but a doc traveling and living out of a hotel room is hardly able to provide any sophisticated and meaningful diagnostic services, over and above what any competent physical therapist can provide.

There is no doubt that both Pfaff and Galea are tainted. As some have remarked, much of Pfaff's taint appears to come after the Bailey then Surin era, which doesn't worry me so much. And yes, Bailey worked with Galea only after the 9.84, but it looks like Surin worked with him before. There is nothing particularly suspicious IMO about peaking at 32, but if Galea was in constant attendance, that is troublesome.

Anybody have links to more info about when Galea might have gone off the rails, and timelines of Bailey/Surin-Galea association?

Sprintgeezer, what's you take on Eddie Tolan's 10.3 100m from the 1932 Olympics in LA?

http://www.arogundade.com/unknown-black-history-people-1932-olympic-sprinter-edward-eddie-tolan-biography.html#chitika_close_button

Sprintgeezer wrote:

That is not for you to say, that is for me to say.

Gay is, and would have been, OFF.

Yeah... except for all those times prior to his being busted where you said he was clean. Some of us have been around here for a while Geezer. You can't just back pedal. LOL

yime wrote:But your saying Bolt's clean, so surely by your reckoning he'd be on top of the list ahead of Gay, busted or not?

Yes, on my list, that would be the case. Notice that I said "his list" which Bolt would never be on.

Yeah... except for all those times prior to his being busted where you said he was clean. Some of us have been around here for a while Geezer. You can't just back pedal. LOL

yah SG was preachin every thread about asafa powell bein the fastest clean guy lol

a while back he wanted peds allowed

now he doesnt lol

Whaaat?--

For the very last time, I said that IF any of the "Big 4" were clean, if any of the sub-9.80 crew were clean, Gay had the best chance.

Sprints Insider wrote:

You can't tag everyone with a certain coach as dirty first of all. Ato Boldon was clean and not once in all the Balco BS did his name come up.

__

if Carl Lewis is off, then Boldon also has to be off. Both tested positive for stimulants but were not punished.

Although this makes me feel better about Lewis - from Wikipedia, so not sure if accurate:

The highest level of the stimulants Lewis recorded was six parts per million, which was regarded as a positive test in 1988 but is now regarded as not performance enhancing. The acceptable level has been raised to ten parts per million for ephedrine and twenty-five parts per million for other substances

And mary decker's positive would also not be a positive today, right? They have since cancelled the test that she triggered. Makes me feel better, although I don't have a ful l understanding.

Sprintgeezer wrote:

Whaaat?--

For the very last time, I said that IF any of the "Big 4" were clean, if any of the sub-9.80 crew were clean, Gay had the best chance.

And now you realize that Bolt has "the best chance".

*--

I agree about not feeling confident about Burrell. The 9.90 WR was OK, but how he just went after it to 9.85 after Lewis lowered it to that huge 9.86 was just a bit too definitive, like it was the product of just a decision to do it, which is a hallmark of doping.

But for me, there has to be something more than that, and his association with SMTC.

For now, Burrell is ON.

Regarding Obikwelu, finishing between Greene and Gatlin is one thing, but it must be considered that he did it in "only" 9.86 (+0.6), not some ridiculous 9.80-or-below time.

Yes, it is an unfortunate placement, sandwiched right between two massive dopers, but that's not enough for me to take him off the list.

Yes, his next-best times were 9.97 (+1.0) and 9.98 (+0.6), but that's nowhere as suspect as Fasuba, who allegedly went 9.85 but never again broke 10--unlike Obikwelu, who did go sub-10 a number of times.

Obikwelu had 1 monster run, in the biggest race of his life, an Olympic final, in absolutely great conditions. That's not suspicious, as would be a history of multiple mid-9.8x results, especially if they were consecutive, or came within a single season.

Furthermore, he was very consistent over his very long career.

Obikwelu at his best was a 9.9x-mid/high//low10.0x guy, who lowered his PR by .10 in the biggest race of his life. That's not enough to take him off the list.

Obikwelu is ON.

Regarding Bailey, yes, he was that good, with that form. His form was only bad in certain ways, but in other ways it was good, and was a result of his particular body, and body type. I can't think of a really good comparison to Bailey--short torso, abnormally long legs, thick ass/quads thin calves--he's like Gatlin, only more extreme, slightly thinner where that would be a good thing, leaner, but unbalanced. He was wonky--look at the videos, you can still see it. He was choppy, extreme. He is the single reason why I played with the idea of it being possible to do sub-9.8 cleanly, because if he had changed a few things or gotten luckier, he would have gone 9.7x--but the point is that he didn't, and he had plenty of opportunities.

His 9.84 isn't at all out of range, considering other times that he put up over his career.

Regarding "poor form", that is only in reference to a mythical ideal. Look at Gatlin, famous for "overstriding". He doped to mid-9.7x, and just won Olympic bronze behind 2 dopers, in 9.79 His "poor form" doesn't hold him back, whether he is on the juice or not (unless you believe that he's on the juice now, and it compensates for his poor form, which is certainly a reasonable argument, although not as strong as it would have been when he was mid/high-9.7x.

Look at Vicaut, too--no drive phase. "Poor form", yet he will make the WC final this year, and has delivered 2 of 2013's best clean races so far.

For now, Bailey is still ON.