But...but...but...Bolt is 6'5"!!!

Whaaat--

I would question your underlying assumption that specific track training from childhood, before puberty, has any beneficial effect on the young adult athlete.

There are lots of examples of people who enter particular pure sports late, and excel.

No, I won't post them. You can look them up.

Those guys who are training football seriously in HS and college go through TONS of power-speed-explosiveness training. Basketballers get it pretty much automatically, and constantly, and even more so in college.

They are not untrained when their HS or college careers are finished. Not at all. And certainly not during their college careers, for instance.

Basketballers have a problem with scheduling, their season is long. Footballers have a tradition of crossing-over to sprints, not just in training, but in competition. WHERE are the 6'4" receivers come NCAA time? Nowhere, that's where.

An argument can be made that the shorter guys focus on sprinting because they know that their NFL prospects are worse than those of a guy who is 6'4"--but let me tell you, all the college guys know when the writing is on the wall, and there are plenty of extremely athletic 6'4" guys who know well in advance that they won't get anywhere in the draft, if they even get there.

AND THIS IS JUST TALKING ABOUT THE USA.

Let me put it to you this way:

WHY IS BOLT THE ONLY 6'5" WR-HOLDER PHENOMENON TO COME OUT OF JAMAICA?

If you are arguing professional development, why haven't others received the same treatment in Jamaica? Because there aren't any other 6'5" guys around? You know there are.

Look at KBC. He's only 2cm shorter than Bolt, but like everybody else in the world, is running believable times, even though he trains under Glen Mills. At nationals, he was only .04 behind Bolt this year, in a "pedestrian", believable time of 9.9x-high

Too bad for KBC that things are getting tougher this year, because if he had been allowed to continue and do what Bolt has done, we may well have seen Bolt 2.0

We still might, if he wants to risk things. If he does, it will be obvious, as was Blake.

"How come shorter guys compete? Because there are infinitely more of them to do so."

This is no argument at all. For instance, look at something like swimming, where height and reach actually matter significantly, and usually positively. Or basketball. Or volleyball. Where are all the 5'10" guys in basketball and swimming and volleyball?

Nowhere, that is where. Sure there is a handful, but they're not the best, let alone the best there ever was, by far.

According to your argument, because there are more short guys to compete for the spots in swimming, basketball, and volleyball, those sports should be populated with them at the elite level, just as has been the case with elite sprinting.

Only they are not, and your argument fails.

Sprintgeezer, you know you could vindicate yourself by averaging 3 or more of Bolts steps/strides based on good quality 100M videos in slow motion and compare it with other top guy within the same race. This will tell us if Bolt has a higher turnover that other guys or if he has a longer stride than others, or everything is equal (doubt it). Remember 100M is won by fractions of seconds so even a single stride difference is monumental!

This is a practical comparison but it is flawed in that we have already established that sprint speed and height do not correlate linearly, otherwise, Yao Ming and Manute Bol would be covering 100M in 8 seconds.

I think the difficulty in the required accurate comparison is that it is impossible. The only fair way to do is to ask if a a shorter or taller version of the SAME individual would perform better or worse. Maurice Greene is not a shorter Carl Lewis and also Bolt is taller Tyson Gay.

You only make yourself look stupid when you insult others and don't provide any arguments. Tell me, what evidence is there that Bolt is doping? Not surprised if you'll just provide more insults instead of arguments.

Geezer - I don't have the luxury of writing a lengthy treatise here as I have hobbies, my work, friends and my family to care for so I'll keep it short. When you have no arguments left you resort to the lowest common denominator - name calling. I have followed track my whole life and I have never wrapped myself in any flag - not the US flag or the flag of any country. Stats and records and difficult to pronounce names of athletes from far away countries that other fans may forget, I remember because I love the sport. My interest in track was borne out of the fact that it was the sport I most excelled in as a youth. In my family the World Championship garnered as much attention as any SuperBowl. When you care about something that much you are not glib about tearing it down on dubious grounds. It seems you are pretty much set in your thinking...so you have a nice life chugging back that haterade. And I will keep it moving.

Deacon:

I want you to understand that I take your post seriously, so here goes:

8 paragraphs:

1) You say you have no interest, and yet you say you are a coach. Your interest is that you believe that coaching has a beneficial effect on 100m performance, and that at least some of Bolt's 9.58 was due to coaching. That is reasonable, although the extent to which you believe benefit is possible through coaching is not known to me.

2) A quote of something I said.

3) You pack many different things into this paragraph, never a good thing to do.

No, I don't understand what "a better athlete" means. In what respect? Relative to what athletic requirement? If you are any kind of coach at all, you will understand what I'm saying. In order for this to have any reasonably discernible meaning, you need to say what it is that you mean, EXACTLY AND PRECISELY. Your example using Powell and Spearmon illustrated my point perfectly: Powell, the superior 100m "athlete", Spearmon the superior 200m "athlete". What I know is that Yao has the athleticism to shoot a free throw, and Shaq doesn't, among other things. Say what you mean Deacon, and don't have others do your work for you.

"You're saying Bolt shouldn't be able to do what he does at his height." No, I'm not--I'm saying (I've said it many times before and I will say it again here, because you want to argue a point that nobody is making, because you feel especially threatened by that point) that in my opinion, it is much more believable that doping contributed to his 9.58 and his 9.63 and his 9.69, than to believe that it did not. Note that I believe that it is not just more believable, it is MUCH more believable.

Spearmon vs Powell...Spearmon can't accelerate? 6.66 60m and 9.96 100m and you say that he can't accelerate? What a bunch of crap. "Spearmon has an ability that Asafa lacks despite them being the same height." Fixed, it's called SE. "why was Bolt able to out accelerate Spearmon during his "clean years"" Exactly what years were those? The years he was running over 10 seconds?

4) There is no contradiction, you are just completely resistant to understanding what I'm saying, let alone accepting it. I'll say it again, although I don't know why, because I've said it plainly and simply many, many times before: Bolt may well have been one of the very fastest, if not THE fastest, clean 100m performer in history had he not doped, but we will never know...but even if he would have gone faster than 9.84 cleanly, or 9.85 basic, he would not have gone 9.62 basic. 9.62 basic, and goofed-and-negative-leaned 9.69, required juice.

I have stated many times that I believe that it is reasonable to think that he might have gone 9.80-9.85, or quite possibly even 9.7x-high, the only one in history. I have said this based on tons of analysis and evidence, not only of Bolt but of the history of the 100m, of the history of 100m athletes, of competitions, of physical requirements, of training, of equipment, of his contemporaries, of everything. And that's what it points to as a possibility. And there is absolutely no contradiction in that. What don't you understand? Naturally he would be a 9.78/9.79-9.85 basic guy. Doped, he is a 9.62 basic guy. This is not contradictory.

If you want to know how I got that 9.78/9.79-9.85 basic figure, you can read through the threads. You are a day late and a dollar short to any real analysis of Bolt.

5) While criticizing me for treating my personal opinion as fact, YOU PROCEED TO DO EXACTLY THE SAME THING. You cannot have it both ways. If you have an opinion that differs from mine on the issue of how fast Gay, Blake, and Johnson would have gone, you can argue it, but you cannot dismiss it by using the same logic for which you claim it is worthy of dismissal, for then your rebuttal is just as easy to dismiss out of hand.

6) What you did was point to specific characteristics in Bolt, and compared the extent of those characteristics to their extent in Obikwelu ("However proportionally, Bolt is built differently and the ratio of his "body parts" are clearly different. (Ex. Bolt has wider shoulders and a smaller waist than Obikwelu)", conveniently ignoring many other factors. I did the same, to show how that argument is incorrect: I would be willing to bet that Howard has the same proportions as does Bolt, only he's 5" or more taller. Or how about Bailey, who had even more radical proportions than Bolt, and whose legs were almost as long?

Bolt isn't "mimicing" anybody's athletic abilities, as you suggest--he is making them look like little kids. EVERYBODY, EVER. Sorry, but in something so pure and simple as the 100m (and I'm sure that the good coach will go to great pains to tell me how complicated it in fact is), that's a joke.

Finally, I will say something that is sure to make your anus curl up into your rectum: I love Dwight Howard.

The best exchange ever filmed, starting at 1:15

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=olAnwLcOCl8

Oh, Deacon, one last thing:

Bolt COULD go slower than 9.58, with the same stride length.

Anybody can maintain the same stride length at a slower speed, if they try, to a point.

The point is that a longer stride does not necessarily mean a greater forward velocity.

Surely you know this from being a big-time coach.

Octa wrote:

Sprintgeezer, you know you could vindicate yourself by averaging 3 or more of Bolts steps/strides based on good quality 100M videos in slow motion and compare it with other top guy within the same race. This will tell us if Bolt has a higher turnover that other guys or if he has a longer stride than others, or everything is equal (doubt it). Remember 100M is won by fractions of seconds so even a single stride difference is monumental!

Good quality below... Bolt starts at 0:43

OhReallyNow--

When you're not making up lies, it doesn't take very long to post, especially when you use modern technology like voice recognition.

And while there is certainly value in maintaining some institutions, those institutions are not to be maintained in their existing state at all costs.

Do not be afraid of change, my friend. The world will still exist after Bolt, even if he tests positive. Even track will still continue to exist in some form--and that will be, in my opinion and in the opinion of many others, a much better form.

Don't worry, neither what I'm doing nor what WADA/IAAF/IOC are doing will mean that there will be no WC's or OG's in the future.

If you really do love "the sport", as opposed to the institutions/governing bodies or the act of coaching, you are no doubt involved in it as a competitor, unless you are completely infirm. Ask yourself if your performance of the sport is better, or worse, as a result of Bolt.

That's not the point.

The point is that he's "better than better", because he more than compensates for any adverse effects of long limb length, because he is "more better" than anybody else has ever been, and is "more better" than any previous WR-holder has been, except for maybe Johnson.

And we know how he achieved it.

Sprintgeezer wrote:And we know how he achieved it.

  wrote:

Sprintgeezer wrote:And we know how he achieved it.

No. You think you know. And you're not telling us why you think that way.

You mean to tell me that you don't know how Johnson achieved it?

You are now cut off from my responses, no matter how inane or argumentative or vexatious or insulting your posts.

Ben Johnson? He was doped yes. There is no evidence to suggest that Bolt is doping. You have still not given any evidence, despite me asking many times already.

I always record the big meets and watch the replays in slow mo to see how Bolt, and the others do their strides and how closely it correlates with their times.

It's relatively easy to check because the marks for the 110m hurdles are exactly 10 yards apart. Once Bolt gets up to speed at about 60M (50M when he has one of his better races), his strides are almost exactly 3 strides for every 10 yards.

The only other person that is even close to that is Christophe Lemaitre (who happens to be 6'4"...so now we can argue about his height too!). But he also did 41 strides when he ran his 9.72.

Sprintgeezer wrote:

Do not be afraid of change, my friend. The world will still exist after Bolt, even if he tests positive. Even track will still continue to exist in some form--and that will be, in my opinion and in the opinion of many others, a much better form.

You missed the boat fool. The change is already here, even if it's to your chagrin.

The "change" came when Balco wiped out the USA druggies and leveled the playing field. T&F was nearly reduced to the level of pro-wrestling at that point and it was Bolt's WR performances that brought it back.

You're the ultimate Bolt hater, who thinks people have to "apologize" for how good he is. The apology should be coming from you. You hate the fact that he is so good that you stoop down to the level of attempting to even insult his country. All that did was show your level of ignorance and desperation.

Your psychosis-induced displays of pedantry, do nothing to hide the hater that you are... but your credit, they are a form of amusement for those that actually know better and possess common sense. For those that don't, you're feeding the ignorance that clouds their thinking.

If you truly hate dopers, then you'd be spending less time on someone who you can only speculate on and attacking those that truly deserve it. For the country that almost destroyed T&F and whose decades of Gold medals should be in question, you are relatively silent.

Here is a question:

What PED did Tyson Gay take that it needs to be hidden a month later? Why is it still hidden???

While the Jamaicans are getting busted for stupid supplements and pain-killers, he must've been on some serious $hit. What was it, ROIDS??? Furthermore, come Moscow, (if he doesn't get busted first) the USA's top sprinter, will be a two-time back-from-suspension, Balco era - offender. He will be facing off with the world's fastest man who has always tested clean. Where is your outcry?

Suck on that reality for a while.

This crusade against Jamaica has long since turned ridiculous. This guy dismisses Blake, Asafa, VCB etc as cheaters when they are testing positive for substances that shouldn't be banned in the first place and offer no real advantage.

At the same time, Tyson Gay is negotiating a 'deal' to get a reduced ban for God knows what. This is just as twice positive Gatlin did to squirm his way back into the sport 4 years early.

Geezer says he has no bias but he dismisses Jamaica as a hell hole and a terrible place when he has never been here. He says we only have drugs, alcohol and sport when we have been independent for 51 years today. He forgets over 3 centuries of slavery and subjugation by Britain that essentially enriched those countries and put an everlasting strain on ours.

Despite this, at less than 3 million people, Jamaica is world known as the country of reggae, a separate genre of music and has produced one of the top 5 musicians of all-time. Add to that the many exports to America, Canada, Britain etc that have excelled in various academic and sporting fields. He conveniently forgets that many top US runners are Jamaican or have Jamaican roots.

This is just sports:

Jeff Cunningham

Chili Davis

Simone Edwards

Debbie Dunn

Robin Fraser

Sandra Farmer-Patrick

Patrick Ewing

Patrick Ewing, Jr.

Dwight Freeney

Ben Gordon

Natasha Hastings

Jerome Jordan

Errol Kerr

Inger Miller

Sanya Richards

Rumeal Robinson

Rolando Roomes

Samardo Samuels

Ndamukong Suh

Devon White

Jerome Williams

Acting

Shari Belafonte

Michael Bentt

Corbin Bleu (1989) film/television actor (High School Musical)

Kim Fields

Dulé Hill

Camille McDonald

Grace Jones

Delroy Lindo

Carl Lumbly

Wentworth Miller

Sheryl Lee Ralph

Madge Sinclair

Chris Spencer

Peter Williams

Stephen Williams

Robert Wisdom

Aviation

Barrington Irving

Literature

Malcolm Gladwell

Thomas Glave

June Jordan

Modelling

Tyson Beckford

Naomi Campbell

Karin Taylor

Beauty contest winners

Carole Joan Crawford, Miss World 1963

Cindy Breakspeare, Miss World 1976

Lisa Hanna, Miss World 1993

Yendi Phillipps, 1st runner-up, Miss Universe 2010

The list goes on and on. I hesitate to even mention that we have a world famous cuisine that has been poorly imitated by American chefs over the years.

What this seems to be is an unwarranted vendetta against Jamaica for no apparent reason other than we are too small to be this good.

Absolutely I'm a hater. I hate doping. Although I can understand why some people do it, and I might have done it as well, had I been in their shoes (some of them).

Because I very strongly believe that Bolt is doping, I just can't get with him.

It's absolutely right to concentrate on him, because he is THE big fish.

He IS t&f as it is currently modeled, which is maddening, because it provides a great reason why he will never test positive. He and Phelps have been the Olympic poster-boys. It's probably too late, and that sucks.

But even though I can live with that, I can't, and won't, live with a fantasy version of history that tries in a pathetic way to account for the maintenance of Bolt as t&f front-man, as though he has been clean.

I'm OK with it, I'm just honest with myself, and with you.

topkill--

Nobody is arguing that the top guys don't tend to cover the 100m in fewer strides than do other guys.

That's not the point.

The point is HOW they achieve that greater stride length, while not suffering an equivalent diminution in stride frequency.

Ilemux--

BWAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Excellent, I couldn't have said it better myself:

Sports, acting, modeling, and beauty contest winners!!

ROFLMAO!

"One of the top 5 musicians of all-time" !!!!!!!!!!

Oh my God, make it stop, it hurts.

Yeah, right up there with guys like Liszt, Paganini, Gould...ROFLMAO !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Absolutely I'm dismissing cheaters as cheaters. If you don't think that stimulants offer any competitive advantage, then why were the Germans and others using them in their doping program ever since WWII ended? Because they have scientifically been proven to work when used properly, that's why. And it doesn't matter where those stimulant dopers come from--I dismiss Rodgers just as easily as I dismiss Powell.

I can say that Jam is a hell hole. I have been there, not to mention seeing first-hand what passes for Jamaican culture in Scarborough during the entire time I was growing up. When Jamaican guys tell you that it is a hell-hole, you know it sucks. Yes, they love certain things about it, but on balance, it sucks, and even they know it.

You are correct, it is a difficult thing to do anything about. I feel for Jamaicans in that regard.

Here's something for you...even without doping, because track is such a culture there, if all countries were completely clean, I think that Jam might be one of the 5 world powers, even given its tiny size relative to other countries.

If Jam is truly great at sprinting, and clean, then eliminating doping everywhere will be to their benefit.

Irie, mon.