Olympic mens 100m

Well, off to a friend's place to watch the final on TV tonight, in the USA.

We're all sequestering ourselves so that we don't know the result prematurely.

Here's to all you guys, next time I read your posts this race will be history.

Even though we've all had our differences, I feel like we're all in the same boat right about now, crapping ourselves at the end of a 3-year wait following the 9.58, mere hours from history. It will be epic, I love all you guys.

100m !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Here's my prediction

1. Blake

2. Bolt

3. Gatlin

4. Gay

5. Powell (forever 5th in the Olympics)

6. Churandy Martina

7. Ryan Bailey

8. Richard Thompson

Lets see how I do. I'll bump this thread after.

Whaaat? wrote:

Okay, I hate predictions but here goes...

1. Bolt

2. Blake

3. Gatlin

4. Gay

5. Powell

6. ???

7. ???

8. ???

This is my prediction too.

Bolt-Gold sub 9.70

Blake-Silver

Gay-Bronze

Gatlin-4th

Powell-5th

1. Blake

2. Gatlin

3. Bolt

4. Gay

who cares

Doesn't the steeple get the track wet?

Not bad but Asafa may have been so weak mentally that he got injured.

Sad end for him. He was out of it anyway. He needed psychological help years ago...Too soft for the big stage.

Bolt and Blake (former schoolmate) did Jamaica proud.

The "experts" just can't seem to get their event specialties right. Sprintgeezer bets against Bolt; Ventolin was sure of a fast 10000m with Kiprop Dominating.

Knowledge is in the masses.

Whaaat? wrote:

Okay, I hate predictions but here goes...

1. Bolt

2. Blake

3. Gatlin

4. Gay

5. Powell

6. ???

7. ???

8. ???

Wow, impressive prediction there, Whaaat?. If Powell hadn't pulled up, you would have been 100%.

Whaaat wrote:

Whaaat? wrote:

Okay, I hate predictions but here goes...

1. Bolt

2. Blake

3. Gatlin

4. Gay

5. Powell

6. ???

7. ???

8. ???

Wow, impressive prediction there, Whaaat?. If Powell hadn't pulled up, you would have been 100%.

Why thank you kind sir!

to the land of funk wrote:

The "experts" just can't seem to get their event specialties right. Sprintgeezer bets against Bolt; Ventolin was sure of a fast 10000m with Kiprop Dominating.

Knowledge is in the masses.

That's what happens when you over analyze.

I honestly thought it would be Bolt, Gay, Blake, Gatlin, but it looks like Gay did not have enough endurance in his finish, guess you can't expect much more from little trainning

Blake 9.77 [9.82]

Bolt 9.79 [9.70]

Gay 9.84 [9.87]

Powell 9.85 [DNF]

Gatlin 9.87 [9.86]

Bledman 9.94 [DNS]

Thompson 9.99 [10.05] (replacing Collins 10.00)

Bailey 10.03 [9.95]

Well, I got 7 of 8 finalists right, all except Martina for Bledman. The actual adjusted times appear to the right, in square brackets.

Of the 6 guys who actually posted times, my predictions were off by an average of 0.05, rounded down slightly.

That's not bad, but it's not that great, either. Of course, I was off most on Bolt--taking him out of it, the average difference is still 0.05, now rounded up slightly.

I'm satisfied with Gay and Gatlin, of course.

Blake went only as fast as he did last year (twice). I though he could improve in this final, but it wasn't to be. Similarly, I thought that Thompson would be his usual championship self, but he came up short of my expectation.

The best thing is that I underestimated Bailey. Bailey just doesn't appear fast when he is running, which is why I find him deceptive. This has really been his coming-out party, to go sub-9.9 in an Olympic final. Wow!

After the heats, it was easy to predict that Bolt would win. I myself called him "invincible" upthread. After the semi's, it was easy to predict that Powell wouldn't be a factor.

Gatlin has had a very consistent season, and ran essentially identical adjusted times in both the semi and in the final, both of which were only a few hundredths faster than his previous adjusted SB. He really is incredible, although he could go even faster IMHO.

Blake? I still think what I've been saying all year about Blake, he is totally juiced. His result is pretty much irrelevant to me.

Bolt? Earlier this year I posted that I thought his adjusted 9.75 was one of the fastest-ever clean runs, and I stand by that assessment.

Was this run clean? Who knows. His recovery in a 1-month period seems nothing short of incredible, especially the fact that he got his start back. The difficulty he was having on his start this season stemmed, IMHO, from a lack of power, which didn't enable decent form. All of a sudden, he looked like the Bolt of old, his semi looking like his Beijing race. He was nearly even with Gatlin during the first half of the race, which is absolutely sensational. He was probably 1.5 meters ahead of where he was at trials, at the halfway point of the race. He was long on the start, drove well, transitioned smoothly (much more smoothly than Gatlin), and in the second half, cycled better than we have seen him all season...it looked like his relay anchor from last year's WC's.

Were drugs the only way to realize those gains within that month? No. Is it possible that he doped for a month? Certainly. Do I think that he doped, given his 9.63 and my previous suggestion that he would be driven to dope by the prospect of losing?

Is an adjusted 9.70 within the realm of clean possibility, given that I thought his adjusted 9.75 to have been clean?

At this point, I don't know. If I had to bet, I would bet that he did something in the past month, not necessarily something banned, however.

But, I don't really care. He crushed 2 guys who I believe to have doped--Blake and Gatlin.