Bolt strongly considering 400, LJ at 2016 Games in Rio

Probably too lazy and shiftless to train for a 43 second race.

Yes I am sure the fastest sprinter of all time and the only person to ever win two golds in the 100 and 200 is very lazy! You are brilliant.

This is great news. If he trains for 400 he'll lose his pop in the 100 and 200. If he trains for the LJ he could get hurt.

For such a big man who already is on a razors edge with his back and hamstrings, and has so much scar tissue built up from 8+ years of sub 20 second 200's this couldn't be better for the USA.

He'll never beat Kirani James, and he'll probably lose to Blake. In the LJ he might win but his back will prevent full extension. 4x1 will be even closer next Olympics.

If he does this, this is the last we've seen of Bolt. He just doesn't have what it takes to do more than 3 events.

He's an idiot and the rest of you that think he could compete in the 400 are likewise. Bolt is no better than 46 for the 400 and that ain't gonna get ya to the starting line at the OG.

Sweet

Nah, he'll be playing football by then. He's supposed to have a go with ManU.

gotta love all the american anti jamaican hate on this site.

wishing injury on someone? you're pathetic, who doesnt want to see the best compete.

as much as i hate the steroid abusing Gatlin i would never wish injury on him as i want to see the best race.

"Bolt is no better than 46 for the 400 and that ain't gonna get ya to the starting line at the OG"

hes already run a 45.86 without any training for it..

I don't wish injury on him, but I think that he is too lazy to train for the 400. I don't care how many medals and records he has, it doesn't take guts or willpower to run for 9 seconds or even 19 seconds. He won't put in the effort to train for a good 400 because the training is too hard and the race too painful. Lazy.

I strongly doubt he could beat Kirani James, who will continue to keep on improving. Hell, I doubt he can even beat David Rudisha in the 400m as he even runs a better time than him (45.50).

When he first started to shine in 08, he had the choice of either being a 100m/200m man or a 200m/400m man. He definitely had the potential to dominate the 400m, but he doesn't any more since he's pure power now and the 400m requires less power and more endurance than the 100m. He should stick with 100m and 200m to defend his titles against Blake, who will be at his best in 2016 and likely will defeat Bolt in one of the two races. If he starts training for 400m, Blake will completely dominate him in both 100m and 200m and he probably won't even win a medal in the 400 meters.

I'd love to be proven wrong and see Bolt defend his title in 100m and 200m and then break Johnson's record in the 400m, as that will truly be the stuff of legends. Bolt has continued to reach new heights, so who knows what is possible if he actually trains for it?

400 / LJ double doesn't make sense. There is more explosion needed for the LJ and more endurance for the 400.

100 / LJ yes. 200/400 yes. 400 / LG - must be a fine spliff.

The only person I remember talking about doing 400 / LJ was Marion Jones. And that was 4x400 not open. Oh and we know she was doped to the gills.

[quote]Lagat Fan wrote:

I strongly doubt he could beat Kirani James, who will continue to keep on improving. Hell, I doubt he can even beat David Rudisha in the 400m as he even runs a better time than him (45.50).

When he first started to shine in 08, he had the choice of either being a 100m/200m man or a 200m/400m man. He definitely had the potential to dominate the 400m, but he doesn't any more since he's pure power now and the 400m requires less power and more endurance than the 100m. He should stick with 100m and 200m to defend his titles against Blake, who will be at his best in 2016 and likely will defeat Bolt in one of the two races. If he starts training for 400m, Blake will completely dominate him in both 100m and 200m and he probably won't even win a medal in the 400 meters.

I agree with this. If anything, go for the long jump title. If he's going to claim legendary status, then at least he has to equal Carl's feat of 4 medals.

MSChemE wrote:

Probably too lazy and shiftless to train for a 43 second race.

He can do that now.

However to follow your theme. He will not become a 400 m man, as long as they run heats and rounds.

One offs he can set the WR. I'd love to see it. But more than one in a day, more than 2 in a month. No way.

Why would he. He earns 20 million a year to trot himself out for the 100 m.

By the time that is over, he'll not find the motivation to move up.

Who knows, he could be good enough to medal in the LJ, considering the weak competition, but he is not WR material, Powell can rest assured.

The 400 however, is completely open to me.

MJ ran the 200/400/4x400 in 1996

Could Bolt do the 200/400/4x400/4x100/LJ?

I would guess no since he didn't even attempt the 4x400 this year... so adding 300 more meters to his 100 and the LJ would be many times more demanding.

But I really wonder if he could do it. I say yes depending on the 200/400 schedule.

Would he be fast enough in the 100 to make the Jamaican 4x100 team if he focused on the 200 and 400? Again, I would have to think so, especially if he felt fast enough to do the long jump.

Bolt should extend himself. That would be 11 medals in 3 Olympics if he could pull it off.

You guys are bringing the stupid and the cynical strongly and early today, as expected.

Bolt ran 45.35 when he was 16 1/2 years old.

http://www.iaaf.org/athletes/biographies/letter=b/athcode=184599/index.html

But of course, he's just too lazy and physically frail to run one whole lap around the track at 100% intensity -- he could do that in his youth, but at the advanced age of 25 those salad days are well behind him.

There's an axiom on this site (see: Galen Rupp) -- the cynicism of the throaty mob is generally in direct proportion to the future performance of the target.

Virtually Certifiable wrote:

Bolt is no better than 46 for the 400 and that ain't gonna get ya to the starting line at the OG.

I thought the people claiming he would "easily" break 43 were dumb, but this is worse.

No where does that say he's strongly considering the 400. His coach wants him to run it, Bolt wants to try the long jump.

Bolt is both insanely talented and lazy, and has juiced periodically.

To state unequivocally that he couldn't get 43.18 is very bold.

Consider that 43.18--is it a high-quality record?

It's nowhere near as good as the 19.32 was, in my opinion. Wariner and Watts were close, and Reynolds was VERY close. Over 400m, Watts was behind by only .32, Wariner by only .27, and Reynolds by only .11

When the 19.32 reigned, the closest guy was Fredericks at .34 back, then Mennea at .38, Marsh at .39, and Lewis and DeLoach at .41

400m: .32, .27, .11

200m: .39, .38, .34

To be fair, Lewis could easily have been .10-.20 closer than he was in the 200m, but the gap would still have been smaller in the 400m.

And Bolt had no problem surpassing the high-quality 19.32, so by extension he should have no problem surpassing the lower-quality 43.18

Also, it is the same individual that he would have to beat in the 400, who he has already beaten in the 200. MJ's success at both suggests that there is a reasonable degree of commonality between the 2 events. To be fair again, there may have been more commonality for MJ, whose 2nd 100m of his 19.32 is still the best second 100m ever run in a 200m, but there is still some universal commonality, especially if specific training is used, of which Bolt has done absolutely none that I can tell over the past 5 years.

So, 43.18 is a weaker record than the 200m that he has already broken in a similar event, and was set by the same athlete, who Bolt has already beaten.

Combine that with Bolt's demonstrated junior potential at 400m, and I think the potential clearly exists to break 43.18

As icing on the cake, add to that the possibility of Bolt juicing with impunity, and not only will he break the record, but he will ABSOLUTELY DESTROY the record.

Wariner 43-mid, a bunch of times? Whether Wariner was juiced or not, if he could do that, then Bolt can do 42-mid.

As for LJ, I think Bolt underestimates just how technical it is. Sure you can jump pretty far on ability alone, but that is a damn high-quality WR, set in a competition between unbelievable athletes who lived and breathed LJ for years. I think that both Lewis and Powell delivered the absolute best LJ's of which they were capable, Lewis having had that monster jump he had erased. To get anywhere near that record will require impeccable technique.

Although Bolt is The One on the track, that's not the case in the jumps. LJ guys are long and wiry. Bolt could get there if he dropped a bit of weight, however. If he dropped some weight and receded to Lewis' 100m quality, he would be better off...however, there is that matter of form.

Other guys have come close to that record, especially with disallowed jumps--Saladino and Pedroso come to mind, not to mention Lewis and Powell both having 8.9+ jumps under windy conditions.

How good is that record, considering that Beamon was there in the 1960's? Even though Beamon did it a long time ago, nobody could touch it for a long time. Plus, Beamon's was a one-off, the miracle jump that just happened to manifest in the biggest competition of his life (I wish I had that kind of luck), plus it had the benefit of altitude. Beamon's was a monster jump, an accident of circumstances. It took 2 guys dedicating their entire lives years to match it.

Could Bolt get there with, say, 2 or 3 years of dedicated training? I would bet against it, but I do think that it is possible. He would have to develop control, and dedication to training, and stay injury-free.

The 400 record is a no-brainer, the LJ record would be very difficult, IMHO.

I should add that the requirements of the LJ and the 100m seem to me to be somewhat mutually exclusive.

Lewis was the anomaly who could do both, and that is what makes him great.

Consider people like Madison and Surin, who switch from LJ to sprints--while doing LJ, they are not world-class sprinters. And consider who can be an excellent 100m sprinter--think about Johnson or Greene or Blake or Carter doing LJ. NOT!

And think about guys like Beamon and Powell and Saladino and Pedroso...world-class 100m sprinters? No.

Bolt would have to lose some of his 100m edge to gain the required edge in LJ, IMO, and would end up just like Lewis, if he was so lucky.