Paris 2012 100m: Gay wins, times are crappy

Sprintgeezer wrote:

A complete failure of a year, what a waste. He could absolutely have been on the medal bubble this year, and around 9.90, if any of his coaches knew what they were doing. Oh well, there's the 200...

Obviously Lemaitre should give up the 100. Why not just move up to the 400 and beyond?

Awesome, Ashmeade tried the Ben Johnson jump start and survived!

It wasn't the fastest start, because he just doesn't have the power needed to make it work like Johnson did. Johnson was, as some say, a "high responder". I had never seen anything like him before, and have never seen anything like him since. He must have had enough stuff coursing through his body to kill a horse, it is a miracle he survived the experiment.

Check out Ashmeade, though--he's got the form, just not the power. He slows after his necessarily-too-long second step, because if it had been any shorter, he wouldn't have been able to keep up the required turnover rate to land his feet under his CofM. To not get buried in that second and third steps takes 'roid power--or, like Ashmeade, more upright angles that don't permit you to apply force along the direction of the track, but require that force be applied more in an upward direction, to keep you from getting buried.

Nice try, though, I like it a lot! I'd like to see him work on it, it is always fun to watch. Good for him, experimenting this year after a disappointing trials. I hope he keeps it up, maybe he will actually, by lots of specific training, be able to effect the jump start while remaining clean. I'd love to see it, and I'm glad that he's bringing something different to the table.

Remember when I said earlier in the season that he looked aggressive? " Ashmeade got out like a rocket, as he did in Orlando. THAT GUY MEANS BUSINESS. He cannot be ignored. I just had the same feeling I had watching him, as I had 2 or 3 years ago when I saw Blake lose a race...the hair on the back of my neck was standing up. There is something about the way he ran...aggressively. He wasn't just running to compete, he was running for the win. He was taking it to the field. THAT is the kind of attitude that makes for champions."

http://www.letsrun.com/forum/flat_read.php?thread=4606594&page=1

THIS is exactly the type of thing that I was talking about. Like Johnson, he was out to win, to take it to the field, to go for the win FROM THE GUN. Aggressive. Fearless. I LOVE IT! Finally a sprinter who knows that he needs to do something special, and is willing to try something out, and not afraid to under-perform in the early stages, or fail outright.

Mark my words: if Ashmeade stays healthy, HE will be the next one, and the main battles will be between him and Blake, with all the current big names relegated to the dustbin. Bolt will break down, Powell will just fade away, Gatlin will erode, Gay could actually stick around a while, and could be in the mix with Ashmeade and Blake.

Ashmeade!

The thing is that the way Olympic entries are structured, he actually has a shot at making the final in the 100m, which would be considered good representation for France--although he wouldn't have any hope of winning or even medaling.

Why not just train appropriately and GET A START?! The guy runs 6.5x indoors, WITH NO START.

All he needs is to pick up another .10 to be contending for gold indoors, and possibly for a medal outdoors. He can run his exact same race, except for the first 5 or 6 steps, where he could gain that .10--heck, he might even be able to gain it in the first 3 steps. Everything else could stay the same.

Or, just train for SE fitness and technical curve running and 200m speed profile, and concentrate on the 200m. If he did that, based on his 19.80 last year, he might just be able to get to 19.6x, which in all probability would land him in the medals, since the 200 is a hit-and-miss affair as far as the participating athletes are concerned.

Look at this year--Gatlin isn't running it. Merritt doesn't run it, even though he could go sub-20 if he wanted to. Gay isn't running it, because he's afraid. Powell isn't running it, because he's a wimp. Dix is injured. It seems as though that's always how things go in the 200m.

He needs to make the 200m his race, to make himself a factor that cannot be dismissed. I have given up hope that he will ever get a 100m start--he lacks the explosiveness. He's fine at generating force if he's given enough time, like that afforded by his incredibly long stride--but quickly, at the start? No.

OTOH, I would love to see him train seriously, pack on 20 lbs, and come out next year an absolute monster. Even WITHOUT 'roids, he could gain 15-20 lbs of muscle easily, with weights, then taper down to 10 lbs heavier than he is now.

Keston Bledman.

Dammit, I always forget about Bledman.

Blake/Bledman/Ashmeade/maybeGay

There are the future top 3, and the dedicated veteran.

GREAT slow-mo compilation from the Paris meet is up on youtube, sprint start at 3:54

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wPJrno2XF9Y&feature=youtu.be

Lots of other good stuff in there, too.

"Granny start" for Lemaitre, I'm guessing that means 'bad', but to me it's not the start he was missing in that race. It's something at around 5 seconds when Gatlin & Gay separate from him.

The U.S. and Jamiacan trials are like the Olympcis, those guys need to physically and emotionally recharge. Two other things, Jet lag and a track that is more suited for distance.

I did not see anything technically wrong with Gay's start, he seems to be hesitant to explode out of the blocks and he became a little wobbly at about 15 meters. When judging a race is it usually best to look at the times overall and who you beat.

The French guy looked and started the way he always starts; it takes a while to get long legs moving fast...Bolt is an enigma.

TrackCoach wrote:

.... I did not see anything technically wrong with Gay's start, he seems to be hesitant to explode out of the blocks and he became a little wobbly at about 15 meters. When judging a race is it usually best to look at the times overall and who you beat. ....

Really? Watch the side on slo mo; Gay's first step looked (to me) like he nearly hurt himself. His right foot wobbles and nearly buckled. So much so that he nearly ended up in Gatlin's lane 2 steps later.

What a great finish though.

Cheers

slo-mo

youtu.be/wPJrno2XF9Y#t=03m53s

mishi--It was for sure a granny start...did you see how gingerly he got up out of the blocks? Like an old man in his slippers and smoking jacket, slowly raising his arthritic body from his favorite easy-chair.

CLM just doesn't develop enough speed in the first 5 steps, he develops it while running, and not while driving. Developing it in its early stages while running is less efficient than developing it while driving, unless you have mad turnover like Gay, which CLM does not.

IMHO

Sprint Geezer you do a fine job trying to explain overall biomechanics but i have to disagree with most of your assertion on Gay's inability to get a good start.

Analyzing the slow mo video (thanks for the link) it's clear that Gay doesn't have the same range of motion for both sides of his body. It's obvious in his arm swinging whereupon you can see that his right arm has more range of motion (or perhaps its his left leg that has that increase in range of motion) than the opposite side.

This clearly affects his running and causes that side to side movement. It's not his core being weak. What one side does you have to do for the other side. Taking that first LONG step and then shortening the ROM causes him to be off balance.

Then there's his hips. They are too high to have a great start. Look at how low Gatlin's hips sink into his pushes to make sure he defies inertia as effectively as possible in order to have a fast get-a-way.

That low hip drive is also Gatlin's undoing as he remained sunken and didn't stay tall the latter part of the race. Gay remains tall and catches Gatlin because staying tall increases cadence by decreasing ground contact time.

BTW, I assure you that Gay is trying to start as HARD as he possibly can. That's absolutely absurd for you to believe he's purposely holding back in the start in order to be "smooth" or "to save his joints".

Look how elated he was when he beat Gatlin at the line. That does not look like a man who wanted to start gingerly and still expect to win.

Sorry for the triple posting, but I DO agree with you on Christophe's start LOL

Very good analogy for it, it's precisely what it looked like.

body master wrote:

BTW, I assure you that Gay is trying to start as HARD as he possibly can. That's absolutely absurd for you to believe he's purposely holding back in the start in order to be "smooth" or "to save his joints".

Look how elated he was when he beat Gatlin at the line. That does not look like a man who wanted to start gingerly and still expect to win.

I disagree. I think Gay knows that his hip is still recovering and that he is either unable to start well, or deliberately starting slowly to save it for the Olympics. I think that in the Olympic semis and finals he will start much better, slightly re-injure himself in doing it, and not race again until adidas Grand Prix next year.

roflcopter3 wrote:

I disagree. I think Gay knows that his hip is still recovering and that he is either unable to start well, or deliberately starting slowly to save it for the Olympics. I think that in the Olympic semis and finals he will start much better, slightly re-injure himself in doing it, and not race again until adidas Grand Prix next year.

Either this is sarcasm or you're an idiot. For starters, "he is unable to start well" does nothing for your stance of disagreeing. Just because he can't START WELL doesn't mean he isn't trying as hard as he can.

NO ONE deliberately starts slow in a final when they're trying to win it. Obviously Gay was trying to win it and he had a bad taste in his mouth after Gatlin BURNT him in Eugene out of the blocks. And he couldn't catch him. So why in hell would he start slow on purpose? This isn't the prelims of the Olympic Games where you're going against 10.5 guys from unknown nations.

In fact, your response prompts the question: Have you ever even came out of blocks before?

I must add, Gay's reaction time was the best in the field. At .142 or whatever it was definitely instinctual. The only way you're coming out of the blocks slow is if your reaction time is garbage because you are consciously thinking about getting out slow.

With a reaction like that the only way Gay could have reasoned with himself to get out slow is if he and his coach have been practicing getting out slow on purpose IN TRAINING. Then that skillset will transfer over to the meet when it becomes second nature.

I wonder if alot of you have ever come out of blocks? Maybe in a fun meet or a prelim against people you know you can easily catch you'll start gingerly. But not in a Diamond League race.

master--

Good post.

Hmmm...

The side-to-side movement is created by his attempt to keep the translation of his CofM in the long direction of the track.

It only happens because his upper body action is inadequate to balance his lower-body action.

His wandering to one side of his lane is not caused by a net imbalance between the 2 sides of his body, both upper and lower, on one stroke--but instead by a net imbalance between his upper body on one side and his lower body on the other side, on one stroke, IMHO.

I could be wrong on this, but consider doing bounds on one leg--one can keep bounding in a straight line, without ever contacting the ground with the other foot.

It is my belief that the Gay's imbalance is not due to any deficiency in either his upper or his lower body, but in the core connecting the two. One can have a more powerful stroke on one side than on the other, and as long as it is a stroke that is balanced between upper and lower body, one will continue in the forward direction, even if the strokes on 2 different sides are not themselves balanced. A bound is the extreme case, where there is zero stroke on one side.

I don't think that Gay's upper-body action is communicated sufficiently well to his lower body. His arms are going just as well as anybody else's, but he is wandering about his lane, and rocking back-and-forth. He even looks like he is windmilling or flailing, because he is attempting to compensate for the inefficiency of communication with an exaggerated action, an increased signal.

As far as the hips go, I understand exactly what you are saying, which is why I say that Gatlin can get "deeply into his starts". I also think that Gay had an excellent drive phase in NYC, with excellent hip carriage, lower than usual, and lower than in Paris.

A lower contact time, by itself, is not causative of an increased cadence. You are right, Gatlin keeps his hips lower, but he has different joint angles than Gay when his foot contacts the ground. Gatlin is really a power runner, who uses the slightly greater contact time afforded by the lower hips and different joint angles to apply power to the track in the backward direction. This is tremendously advantageous during acceleration, particularly early and mid-acceleration, but becomes less of an advantage in late acceleration, and potentially a disadvantage at top speed, when the rearward force is not required to be as great, and foot speed and foot plant location become more important.

Plus, cadence is not directly correlated to speed over the ground, something that is best illustrated by someone like Kim Collins, who has tremendous cadence and very low contact time, but also a lowered speed, compared to some of his competitors.

Gay simply exhibits more explosiveness than does Gatlin. I essentially agree with what you have said about the two of them. Gatlin should back off on the amount of force developed, in favor of developing slightly less force in a shorter interval of time, which would give him that increase in cadence, maybe.

There are starts, and there are starts. Every sprinter is capable of doing more than one particular start. Gay does the one he does because it works for him, in that it can be reasonably fast, and in that it saves his body. I'm not saying that he's not doing THAT start all-out; what I'm saying is that different starts have different "all-out" levels, and the levels of the start he uses are below the levels of other starts, such as the jump start.

Gay should try more of a shuffle action like Gatlin and Powell, which can also have a forgiving all-out level, but which can be faster than the start that Gay uses. It's not that difficult to learn or execute--pretty easy, actually. I have switched to it myself, because it allows me to actually practice starts and save my achilles, something other starts will not let me do.

master: "The only way you're coming out of the blocks slow is if your reaction time is garbage because you are consciously thinking about getting out slow."

This is completely wrong.

Master, you've gone off the rails!