Why on earth does IAAF considers Bolt's 9.58 equivalent to a 12:21.34 5k / 7:12.10 3k?

I should mention that since Hines and Smith adjust to 10.03 and 10.04, the 100m eras can be further simplified to:

Prehistory - Owens, Peacock, 10.3

Modern - Hayes 10.0

Johnson - 9.8

Dolt - 9.6

Here you can better see the enormity of 9.6. All the above times are “thereabouts”. The best prehistory guys would probably be in the modern era times if they had blocks. Hayes may have been the first good user, and he may have started the Johnson era in modern equipment and on a modern track.

So all historic best were modern era times, then came Johnson who first broke the door down. Then came Dolt, who threw the door away.

I do believe that Dolt would have beaten Johnson cleanly. Dolt would have been 10.0/10.1 before i jury, and Johnson 10.2-10.3, but Johnson would have lasted longer.

Say what you will about Lewis (and yes I took him off the untainted list) but that guy was fast. Both he and Bailey, along with Hayes, would have beaten Dolt cleanly IMO. Lemaitre was the same speed, only he lasted longer because he had no back problem.

A guy like Witherspoon or even Obikwelu might have benefited greatly from the modern cocktail including peptides. As it is, 9.58 is WAY down there. Given optimum conditions again, somebody else will get down there, but IMO it will take at least another 10 years.

9.58 is huge because nobody in the BJ era could have gotten, or could get, there, except for maybe Bailey, Lewis, Hayes, or Lemaitre, all on Dolt’s program.

Nobody has been able to break out of the BJ era without blowing up. Greene, Gay, Blake. Powell came the closest, and he was on a similar program. He was the Dolt precursor, the test bed. Dolt was even bigger, and faster, earlier. Perfect.

And all those names above are big maybes. Lemaitre might have had the best chance, as he had the obvious room for improvement—but then again, he ran slower than those other guys.

ex-runner wrote:

malmo wrote:

I have no idea what your math is supposed to prove.? The 2nd fastest 5000 is 12:39.36, not 12:37. If you multiply 0.9886 by 12:39.36 you get 12:30.70. But I'm not even sure why you think a linear comparison of two completely different events with completely different energy systems is valid?

I wasn't aware it was complicated maths to follow.

The fastest 100m compared to the second fastest is 9.58/9.69 = 0.9886

If someone ran a new 5000m WR which was as equally superior to 12:37 as 9.58 is to 9.69: 12:28/12:37 = 0.9886

i.e: 9.58/9.69 = 12:28/12:37

All it shows is a comparison of 4 times. I guess at school you would call this 'fractions'...

Dude this isn't so hard, I guess your school would call this 'statistics'. The IAAF is not so stupid as to calculate its statistics using fraction comparisons of 4 times. They are measured based on how statistically better each mark is compared to all other athletes best times. They found that Usain Bolts PR is light years ahead of every other sprinters' PR's by a larger margin than Bekeles record is better than everybody else's PR's. I'd explain it but you but seeing as how you ridiculed someone else when they correctly pointed out how illogical your conclusion was, I won't waste my time. If you want to do some studying though you can look up what a "z-score" is in statistics.

A fun video especially for sprint fans.

https://www.facebook.com/Eurosport/videos/10156447549454745/

Sorry Malmo but no, the video wasn’t fun for me.

At all.

Not to mention the bizarreness of turning Dolt white.

The 100m is a very short race and everything has to be perfect to run exceptional times. On that day I guess he did everything right...

Because if you have talent, you sprint. If you don't, you run.

I'll be honest, at first I appreciated your point of view on sprinting. Didn't agree with all of it, but respected it nevertheless. No idea who you are, but you've obviously speak from a place of experience.

I am a Bolt fan, but as I stated in my previous post must concede that Bolt had probably cheated at some point in order to be that much better than the other cheaters.

That being said, your post that I quoted is dripping with salt. You sound bitter. Almost as if Bolt has taken some of your shine.

Carl Lewis?

He, along with others, took the shine from all of sprinting.

Nobody except small children and morons cares if Coleman or anybody else runs 9.7’s, 9.6’s, 9.5’s. As they say, it’s a clown show.

The best that can happen now is that some guy who has a hope in hell of being clean can take a few scalps with excellent 9.9 times. That used to be a guy like Lemaitre, then Bromell, and most notably De Grasse.

Yeah, I know, cue the doubters, but those guys are the reason for hope. Also guys like Cameron Burrell.

Sprintgeezer wrote:

He, along with others, took the shine from all of sprinting.

Nobody except small children and morons cares if Coleman or anybody else runs 9.7’s, 9.6’s, 9.5’s. As they say, it’s a clown show.

The best that can happen now is that some guy who has a hope in hell of being clean can take a few scalps with excellent 9.9 times. That used to be a guy like Lemaitre, then Bromell, and most notably De Grasse.

Yeah, I know, cue the doubters, but those guys are the reason for hope. Also guys like Cameron Burrell.

As the other guy said, I know you come from a place of experience and passion, SprintGeezer, but someone can't blame Bolt (or "Dolt," as you call him) for being as good as he was. Maybe he doped, but there's zero proof of it as of now. Someone like Christian Coleman is under far greater suspicion, as he went and got his idiotic ass suspended because he can't be bothered to be around to get himself drug-tested.

But I don't see how it's Bolt's fault that he's that much faster than everyone else ever. I don't think the man should be faulted for running 9.58 and 19.19. I do get that since his retirement, there has been some joy taken out of sprinting, though. No one is coming close to his times. The person who came closest since then (Coleman) is now suspended.

GoldenMile wrote:

Maybe he doped, but there’s zero proof of it as of now.

This is incorrect. It IS true that no adverse analytical finding has been reported.

you mentioned some drug 'program' he was supposedly on, then reported my post asking about it

No I understand statistics perfectly well and I understand how the IAAF tables were made.

All I'm saying, in answer to the OP, is that Bolt is 1.1% ahead of the next closest competition.

So if you consider what 1.1% ahead of the current 5k WR would look like, it would be 12:28. It is food for thought.

I never stated that I think that is a more accurate or less accurate comparison than the IAAFs statistical method. I would say it is less accurate but then I don't believe that the conclusion they have drawn is correct either.

I think it is more likely that 9.58 is closer in standard to 12:37 than to 12:20. It is more likely that 9.58 is equivalent to ~12:35 and Bekele is underrated by the IAAF.

Essentially I believe that the depth in the 5000m all-time is much deeper than the 100m.

For me a case and point is when Christian Coleman rewrote the 60m WR.

If Bekele would have run 12:30, he would be as much ahead of Gebrselassie as Bolt is ahead of Gay - it's really not that hard to understand what malmo was pointing on.

Great video. Thank you.

It's pretty obvious that's exactly what I said.

If Athlete X came along and broke the current WR held by KB by the same margin Bolt is ahead of Gay then that Athlete X would run 12:28.

I don't think 9.58 is way stronger than 12:37 though. Sprinting is comparatively weak compared to distance running. Probably because other sports (football etc) can draw away talented sprinters.

ex-runner wrote:

letsdrum wrote:

If Bekele would have run 12:30, he would be as much ahead of Gebrselassie as Bolt is ahead of Gay - it's really not that hard to understand what malmo was pointing on.

It's pretty obvious that's exactly what I said.

If Athlete X came along and broke the current WR held by KB by the same margin Bolt is ahead of Gay then that Athlete X would run 12:28.

I don't think 9.58 is way stronger than 12:37 though. Sprinting is comparatively weak compared to distance running. Probably because other sports (football etc) can draw away talented sprinters.

What? It should be the opposite. Those who can't sprint and don't have the coordination for contact sports have to run, not the other way round.

Again, where is this “sprinting is comparatively weak” coming from? I am not disagreeing, but I would like to hear some reasoning.

Other sports might take a few good sprinters, but the whole “NFL” thing is overrated.. Yeah there are some fast guys, but they all ran track, and some even won NCAA’s like Holliday in 2009–but was Holliday ever going 9.58?

He got knocked out of the trials in the semi’s in 2008, which was a great showing. The fastest of the fast NFL guys would be, and have been, competitive at trials up to the level of the semi’s, but to be in the rarefied top-10 all-time takes specialization, and the right sauce. Could the best-of-the-best have competed? My guess is yes, but that represents only a handful of guys—and that says nothing about the Dolt level of 9.58.

At best they would add to the body of 9.9 work, with maybe an exceptional one going 9.8 or 9.7-high. The chances of a 9.6 are infinitesimal, and the chances of a 9.5 are completely speculative. There is no good reason that I can see that either the WR would be lower than 9.58, or that anybody else would have gotten closer than 9.69.

Gatlin and Blake have both been fast, and were fast when young, like Dolt. They were beating football guys who ran track just the same, then they specialized and used, and didn’t get to 9.58.

The interesting thing is of course 19.26. While not 100m, it is temptingly suggestive of just how good the juice is.

Look at CC. There is NO WAY that he would be anywhere near his current times without it, with that form. He is just a turnover monster, neurologically supercharged. He is like Collins, with more turnout and a longer stride. If he could get to 9.76, then wow.

I don’t think selection has anything to do with the 100m WR. I think there are plenty of guys worldwide who could be pumped to 9.7.

BUT there is no indication that there is any sub-20 15-yr old other than Dolt now, no indication that there ever could have been, and no reasonable expectation that one will emerge in the next few years. Nobody is even close.

Dolt was special. He had extreme strengths, and glaring, easily-overcome weaknesses, and in the right race segments. You could never take a young acceleration phenom like Combest and impart to him a world-beating second half. You could improve upon it, but you could never make it epic.

The start and early accel, otoh, can be made great, there is no question. Look at Dolt, his early part was as good as anybody’s, ever, once he was fine-tuned—and through training, his first half ended up the best ever.

9.58 is way down there, and is special. Exceptional raw material, the perfect cure for the weaknesses, and a system that was determined to make it happen.

How do you get that in distance? Look at Komen—what was he like before the insanity? What were his strengths, and weaknesses? He TT’d much of those races, and lived to tell about it. I think distance guys have been tuned just as much, to the point where they have no weakness. What was Bekele’s weakness at his peak? None. El G’s? None.

Dolt was unique in that he had both extreme talent and extreme weakness, of the right sort, at the same time.

Maybe there is a similar distance great, honestly IDK—but if not, 9.58 may really be a “stronger” record.

And the suggestion that the same type of running talent applies to both sprints and distance, and that it is all just a stratification of that same talent, is wrong.

Some distance guys do it because it is perfect for them, not because they can’t sprint fast. Would they necessarily do sprints instead, if fast enough? IMO, no. It is also personality, situation, etc that matter.