An extra 20% energy return…Could see multiple records broken over various distances. Discus
I don’t think the discus records will be broken
"Chen said: "There is the potential for early nine seconds if not sub nine seconds for a human. We see how running shoes have evolved a lot, training methods and nutrition… but one thing that hasn’t changed pretty much is the track surface – that hasn’t changed for like 60 years, from the 1968 Olympics."
Forgive me if I don't have the same sense of deja vu reading this as I had listening to those lab muppets in Colorado that said Kipyegon could run 3% faster (and 3.59.23) for a mile if she just had perfect "drafting".
Actually track surfaces have changed quite a lot since 1968 and there has been quite an evolution on many fronts. 1968 was a homogeneously poured urethane surface, what these championships will be run on is a prefabricated (offsite) Mondo Mondotrack WS surface (see below)
and even this isn't the most technologically advanced surface they have now - that is the new EI surface they had in Paris.
And nobody seems to know exactly what type of track is perfectly suited for which event. The Tokyo '91 and the "magic carpet" track was controversial because it was so hard with basically no cushioning at all - hated by the distance runners, loved by the sprinters and jumpers (so much so that at the time there were people whop legitimately felt that Lewis and Powells WR's shouldn't be ratified). The Tokyo '21 track (this one) was the opposite - allegedly feeling extremely cushioned but bouncy which has benefits in certain respects to an ultra hard track, but not in other respects.
We already know what the optimal surface for distance running is - it exists in Boston at the BU facility. That was legitimately engineered for energy return and multiple iterations of it tested when it was created. But that thing is basically an asymmetrically banked hollow box and will always be far more effective than relying on compression and resiliency of a 20-25mm track surface due to it's fundamental construction and materials.
9 seconds for a human being? What is this guy talking about. Trying to sell his idea to WA for a couple of hundred million bucks that's what. Ma's turtle blood.
if it's that good, hopefully they don't allow it. I always thought the purpose of modern tracks was just to make them suitable for all weather conditions.
Not to entice super human performances. The performance should be barely be better than a cinder track or other surface would be in PERFECTLY OPTIMAL CONDITIONS.
