Rojo and Usain Bolt

vkgig wrote:

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?

??

killarney wrote:

It may not have happened in the 100m, but larger percentage drops have happened in the 5000 (Haile), the long jump, etc before. If you increase your sample size it becomes more believable.

Who says Haile wasn't doping. It was the EPO era.

The LJ record was broken by a ton, but it was at altitude and it was 1968. His record stood for an admirable 23 years and then it was broken.

clarified wrote:

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.

Funniest thing I've read on here in a long time. Where on earth did you learn your math or perhaps you are self taught?

All the folks who respond with, "Lebron dopes, too," are missing the main thrust of the argument. Unless whatever Lebron allegedly takes made him so much physically bigger than his competitors. I don't know enough about Babe Ruth to engage with that part of the argument. But the Lebron deal makes sense--he is an incredible ballplayer, but he would not have achieved the superstar status he has were he not so big. I have never seen such a combination of speed and grace in an athlete so big and strong--not even David Robinson. And Lebron is even heavier!

This in no way proves that Bolt is clean. But he is as visibly physically different from his main competitors as is Lebron. That's why the analogy works, regardless of whether he's clean or not.

As my handle indicates, I follow University of SC sports. Take as another example Jadaveon Clowney. There are plenty of seriously freakish athletes at the D1 and NFL levels. Indeed, the #1 recruit this past year was also a big, fast DE. But when the experts are asked, "so, is it reasonable to expect him to play like Clowney," they answer no. Clowney is a freak among freaks--allegedly ran 4.46 at 270 lbs this summer. It is at least theoretically possible that Bolt is a freak among freaks due to the obvious physical differences in a way that would be much harder to argue for a Gay, or Powell, or Carter who seem physically so similar.

In order to make judgments without facts, we are best served to inform ourselves using statistics.

Rojo's logic is backwards because he misreads the statistics, claiming that someone who is statistically unlikely to be a good sprinter is nevertheless a good sprinter because of his unlikeliness to be a good sprinter (e.g. because they are an outlier).

That's like saying you are likely to win the lottery because your chances are so low.

If being tall were a revolutionary advantage in sprinting, Bolt might still be the fastest ever, but there would be strong evidence that height was an advantage which would show up in the statistics (i.e. the average height of top sprinters would be taller).

Leg length is not the important physical factor that makes Bolt fast. Bolt is fast because of his ability to generate power versus his weight. The reason other tall sprinters usually have lower turnover is because their ability to generate power is lower. Why is Bolt alone able to generate more power than all the other tall sprinters?

If Bolt is actually clean, it has nothing to do with his height, and is more likely to be a genetic advantage in the natural production of muscle building hormones. Bolt is actually competing at a disadvantage because of his height, and the statistics strongly suggest this.

Also, Bolt being a child prodigy proves nothing. Marion Jones was a child prodigy. Either they were both doping all along, or they both had the potential to be the fastest clean sprinter ever. Being fast as a youngster doesn't have any bearing on a person's propensity to cheat.

Since there is no evidence that Bolt cheated, I don't know any more than the next guy whether he is clean. But Rojo's logic is laughable and my judgment, based upon statistics, is that Bolt is more likely to be dirty than any other athlete in history.

trello wrote:

hhxh wrote:

Stride length does NOT have anything to do with how long a person's legs are. Stride is a measure of the distance covered with each push off. That is clearly only dependent on how much force is being produced and has nothing to do with leg length. This is basic physics.

Furthermore, as for the basic physics: Force is measured in kg*m/s^2... You can't simply equate that to stride length, measured in m (length) without taking into account mass (kg) and the amount of time (s) that that force is applied. Both of these vary with height.

Current science of constant speed running (article originally in PopSci by Jia You) :

"Maximizing running speed requires a tradeoff between hitting the ground hard and maintaining stride frequency. Hitting the ground with maximum force requires the sprinter to spend more time in the air, which slows down the strides he can make per second. The optimal combination of stride frequency and ground force varies with individuals depending on their size, leg length, and the speed they run, Weyand says. There is no golden ratio."

Ruth and James play(ed) skill sports...there's more to baseball and basketball than running in a straight line. What an idiotic comparison.

trello wrote:

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.

Trello. It is clearly NOT a function of more than just force. Look at the equation. Contrary to your belief, it is possible for tall and short athletes to have the same mass and to have the same time. Thus, it becomes irrelevant how long their legs are.

I don't think it's possible to stay at the top for many years and be clean. I mean, to always dominate. Normal people get tired and lose their peak. And injuries add up and the body just doesn't want to go anymore. That's what I think, anyway.

This is just the Lance Armstrong argument all over again. How can one clean athlete be head and shoulders above all these dirty ones? Until Bolt tests positive, I will give him the benefit of the doubt, but I can see why so many would think of him as dirty, and it shouldn't shock any of us if he does.

Also, Rojo would have been better suited to compare Bolt to Bo Jackson rather than Babe Ruth. Ruth was only a freak because he could actually drag himself out of bed after the bender the night before.

Gay Marxist wrote:

Oh, and the Puma ad revenue is just icing on the cake. The brojos are about as trustworthy and reliable as a Fox News pundit.

Agreed. Nobody wants to find out the horse they back is juiced. Bolt and Puma have graced Letsrun.com on many occasion and the association is obvious.

the anti trello wrote:

F = ma = m( d/t^2)

Trello. It is clearly NOT a function of more than just force. Look at the equation. Contrary to your belief, it is possible for tall and short athletes to have the same mass and to have the same time. Thus, it becomes irrelevant how long their legs are.

What on earth are you talking about?

F = m*d/t^2 which means d = F*t^2/m

d is clearly a function THREE VARIABLES!!

Two athletes of different heights "can" have the same time of force exerted and mass but they don't unless they are altering their stride or have a significantly lower BMI or whatnot...

Rojo argument/rationalizations sounds like the same one's made 10 years ago to explain how Armstrong could beat a bunch of dopers. Cancer changed Armstrong (he kept his power and lost 20 pounds). His physiology was unlike anyone else. Blah, Blah Blah

I'm saying that Bolt is a doper ... just that I've heard these rationalizations before. And in the end Armstrong could not beat dopers ... he was a doper.

WITHOUT the emergence of sarms ,bolt would be nada .

first to benefit heavily was powell and then gay

and before them all them was liu xiang .

short hurdles is the one event that i say benefited the most from them .

where were the 6' 2'' and 87 kg sprinters running

sub 10 and sub 9.90 before powell and 2005 .

not just height that is up !!!

also the weight .

like 100kg sub 10 american sprinter that name escapes me.

where there is smoke there is fire !!!!!!

killarney wrote:

the anti trello wrote:

F = ma = m( d/t^2)

Trello. It is clearly NOT a function of more than just force. Look at the equation. Contrary to your belief, it is possible for tall and short athletes to have the same mass and to have the same time. Thus, it becomes irrelevant how long their legs are.

What on earth are you talking about?

F = m*d/t^2 which means d = F*t^2/m

d is clearly a function THREE VARIABLES!!

Two athletes of different heights "can" have the same time of force exerted and mass but they don't unless they are altering their stride or have a significantly lower BMI or whatnot...

There is no reason to put can in quotes. Runners are skinny people. It doesn't take much for a short runner to weigh the same as a taller runner. Think Rupp and Webb. The force exerted has nothing to do with leg length. Bones don't exert forces. Muscles exert forces.

Have you never heard of strength to weight ratios? That is what stride length is all about. There is no rational way that you can deny that. Two people of the same height and weight can have different stride lengths. It doesn't take any altering of stride or whatnot.

This is very much worth a read:

http://www.nairaland.com/1014517/usain-bolt-using-performance-enhancing

Sounds about right but professional sprinters are well trained to stride to the maximum of their abilities. At this point a significantly taller athlete will cover the same distance in a shorter time than his shorter counterpart with all things being equal. I haven't counted the average number of steps Bolt takes in a typical 100M race compared to Tyson Gay but I would not be surprised if it was less for Bolt. In a race that is won by fractions of a second, even half a stride advantage is overkill.

The theoretical argument based on the physics of force and friction are sound but remember that reality is that Bolt is better than anyone else today. The only possibilities to explain this in the most probable scenario where everyone is doped is that (1) we are making some wrong assumption about Bolt's physics, (2)Bolt has access to superior drugs, (3)Bolt (doped or not) is more talented that anyone else.

What we need is an intern to average a couple of Bolts strides in a couple of 100M races and compare that with Gay and two more other guys who are also fast. I am betting $1 that Bolt takes slightly less than you typical sprinter. Remember that races are won by fractions of a second, so even half a stride difference is ample.

Octa wrote:

At this point a significantly taller athlete will cover the same distance in a shorter time than his shorter counterpart with all things being equal

No. If all things are equal, then they will cover the distance in the same time. Leg length and height don't matter. Have none of you taken a physics class before? All that matters is how much they weigh and how hard they are pushing off the ground. If Bolt is taking fewer steps then that means he is pushing off the ground harder (assuming that their masses are equal).