Saw this the other night and this sprinting is other-worldly - Silke Gladisch blowing everyone away whilst the DDR team set a new world record for the 4x100 (still standing 26 years later) :
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lBEqxkt-IB0
or this more famous and contemporaneous piece of running by Mr Bolt :
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pkkAcGtjoew
Who ya got ?
It really doesn't matter, they are both laughable performances!
But considering against whom Bolt was running and the times they ran, I'd have to say that Bolt's run was more audacious.
That said, Gladisch's relative speed advantage is far greater. Too bad she had to hand off.
I remember 1985. The sky was the limit, nothing was unattainable.
An equally astonishing sprint was one that Ben Johnson started, I forget when at the moment, but his start was PERFECT. He blasted out of the blocks so perfectly, so absolutely perfectly, that they HAD to call it back, even though no false start was indicated. It was called back because it was judged not humanly possible. It was infinitely better than his start in Seoul or Rome, and it was in a quarter or a semi, IIRC.
Also, 2 other insane runs were Bolt's anchor leg at the WC's this year--it was a revolution, holy crap.
And Bob Hayes anchor leg in the 1964 Tokyo 4x100. Hayes is right up there with Gladisch, IMHO.
They're all insane.
Absolute performance? Bolt.
Relative performance? Gladisch.
Combination of the two? Hayes.
Brief perfection? Johnson.
Full-race beauty? Maybe Jeter.
Moral of the story: drugs make you not only a faster, but a better, sprinter.
Hayes was the best ever.
After more thought, I'd take Bolt.