Bolt's 40 Yard Dash

None of those NFL players would stand a chance. Also, I think Blake and Powell are faster over 40yd.

That is a pretty good analysis but I heard Gatlin had a 40y time of 4.28 legit done at a football camp.

Canadien Eh? wrote:

None of those NFL players would stand a chance. Also, I think Blake and Powell are faster over 40yd.

Right. What these NFL players forget is that Bolt has been uber careful to not false start ever since 2011. With the old false start rule, there is a great chance he could have run 9.58 again this year.

Football Guy wrote:

That is a pretty good analysis but I heard Gatlin had a 40y time of 4.28 legit done at a football camp.

Source? The fastest published time for Gatlin is only 4.42, from an NFL pro day in 2008.

don't forget to add in the difference of running on turf with football cleats and a track with track spikes, that would make a big difference

NFL does theirs on a track.

40-yard.

Gatlin participated Tuesday in a 90-minute tryout for the Houston Texans, said Kevin Cooper, the team's director of media relations.

Gatlin, who is 6-foot-1, or 1.85 meters, 180-pound, or 81 kilograms, last played football in high school. He ran the 40- yard dash in a blinding 4.1 seconds, and made a spectacular 50-yard catch during the workout, according to another player who participated in the session.

NY Times Article

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/11/30/sports/30iht-GATLIN.3725955.html?_r=1

backup quarterback and newly appointed receiver Devin Gardner put the idea in Robinson's head after touting Robinson's speed.

"Denard could do that in a heartbeat — he's the fastest man in the world," Gardner said. "I know what Usain Bolt did in the Olympics, and Denard probably couldn't beat him at 100 meters, but when it comes to football speed at 40 yards, I'd take Denard. He's that fast."

Robinson's last published 40-yard dash time, which comes from high school, is 4.32 seconds. In 2010, his top time in

Rawson, if anything else knows stats!

the indoor 60-meter dash was 6.81 seconds.

Boy, if only we knew how fast Bolt could run a 40-yard dash. Oh wait, we do.

ESPN track and field reporter Larry Rawson said on the radio after reviewing Bolt's 20-meter splits that Bolt would run 40-yard dash in a time that would burn up the field turf.

Rawson: "Forty yards, if he was being hand-timed by a scout and reacting to his movement - not electronically timed the way they do it [in track and field] - his 40-yard dash on a track, in spikes, would be 3.73 seconds."

Host: [Laughter] "He would run a sub four-second 40-yard dash?"

Rawson: "Listen, I did the math as though it was electronically timed, which it's not for football — electronically timed — and it came out to 3.97 seconds."

The math of the OP seems pretty accurrate - not 3.7

bulldog35 wrote:Robinson's indoor 60-meter dash was 6.81 seconds.

Bolt split 60m in Berlin in a very fast 6.29

Does he really think he could tough him at 40?

Not sure how this factors in, but sprinters use blocks and the NFL combine doesn't.

Also worth noting is that Thompson, Powell, Gay, Blake, and Gatlin were ahead of Bolt at around the 40 yard mark in the London Olympic finals. Blake and Gatlin had slightly slower reaction times.

sorry "touch"

Don't come on an American website and distort the truth.

Justin Gatlin last played football in college - for the mighty Tennessee Volunteers!!!

The finish of a 40 yd dash is not hand controlled. There is a button at the starting line, and a sensor beam at the finish that you run through.

I used to work at a major Div 1 university football camp in the summers during college. So sad...but with a jogging start I was only able to manage a 5.1. Slow twitch mutha effer!

yes, this is what i was looking for, i am trying to find how to accurately convert 100m times to 40 yard dash times that account for every variable, yet each of these conversions do not include the fact that a track makes you faster than turf, and the fact that spikes also make you faster than cleats.

Why do hand times receive +0.24 seconds?

Isn't a human with a stopwatch just as likely to hit the button early as they are late, for both the take off and the finish?

since in a 40 yd, you're reacting entirely to the movements and spatial position of the runner, wouldn't this be the case?

For what it’s worth Bolt did run a 40 yard dash on turf after he retired from track and was well past his prime. He ran a 4.22 in casual shoes and street cloths:

Former high school football player