Su Bingtian 100m progression

Sprinting is getting more interesting these days.

These are what sprint times should look like.

I agree with your analysis. I saw Su @ PRE and he is impressive, he runs hard against Lyles, Coleman, etc. China is forging a strong M 4x100m squad, potential medal contenders at the 2020 OG.

Good to see your analysis again, Geezer! Anyway I don’t know if you’ve seen this but here is a great podcast interview with Randy Huntington where he talks some about training Su

https://overcast.fm/+GtyRqIkQQ

Are you saying that multiple 9.9X guys improved to that from 10.4X within a season or 2?

This is a WAY TOO SIMPLISTIC analysis.

Here is a progression of a well known doper from age 19 to age 26 :

age 19 10.25

age 20 10.30

age 21 10.19

age 22 10.12

age 23 10.00

age 24 9.95

age 25 9.83

age 26 9.79

annual improvements :

+0.05

-0.11

-0.07

-0.12

-0.05

-0.08

-0.04

You recognize the sprinter who put this times ? It's Ben Johnson from 1981 to 1988. He allegedly began to dope in 1982. Where do you see a 0.5s improvements in a year ? Or even in the span of two years ? Nowhere.

The only suspicious improvement that he had was when he was 18 when he went from 10"6 to 10"2.

But that is normal at this age. Large improvements when a teen are common for various reason (not fully committed, not fully matured, lack of pro training etc...).

I can give you the name of several well known dopers that had improvements similar to Su.

Secondly, you're assuming that the yearly best of a sprinter represents his true value. That is simply not true. This is not how you do statistical analysis (I did the same thing with Johnson to show you that you can interpret the progression the way you want). If a sprinter regularly race in the 10"3 area and then put a 10"05 on a Clermont Type track, does that makes him a 10"05 guy. I think that you know the answer. You have to look at the yearly avg...

The problem with Su is that he went from a guy who struggled to dip under 10" the previous seasons (I think he never did it more than once a year) to a guy who nows races in the low 9"90 at EVERY meet while being close to 30 yr old (next year).

He has raced more times under 10" this year than the 10 previous years of his career at an age when sprinters generally begin to fade. The regularity that he suddenly managed to achieve is suspicious. He can, now put 9"9 low back to back at meets (Compare to hiw WC finals where he struggled to repeat his semi times in finals)

And that, the progression that you list does not show it .

I am even going to talk about the ridiculous, Maurice Greene like, times he put this indoor season despite being a regular indoor racer the years before

https://www.letsrun.com/forum/posts/8982248/reply

Good progression

I will speak to this. You have no idea how stringent the rules are in China and how severe the punishment. Su takes his role as a role model for Chinese youth very seriously. Doping is not even on the table in any manner.

If you know anything about sprinting you would know that Su has the basic qualities to run fast. He has extremely high SF and developing SL. What we did was reengineer his technique from the bottom up, change his lifting to focus on power not just strength, and taught him a race model which he still hasn’t executed properly to this day.

Nike made him a pair of stiffer spikes so he could get more out of ground force application, we used Keiser to develop specific power and plug the power leaks in his technique. We drilled him until he became relaxed at higher velocities. We used 1080 sprint to help him understand his accleration issues. And impose some assisted speed demands he hadn’t experienced previously. We have not done speed endurance at the level he needs to go low 9.8’s, but he can hit high 9.8’s. He is capable of that if all is perfect.

When you don’t understand the science of coaching or the technology available to create change in an athlete it is easy to resort to pointing fingers. I suggest you educate yourself before you make any more comments about Su. One of the most professional athletes I have ever coached. Any one that knows me knows drugs are not in a conversation with my name.

Coach Huntington, may I ask if you can give some insights into Su’s training modulation? Do you have him do a short to long, long to short, or concurrent program? Or perhaps some other modality that doesn’t fit these ideas exactly?

When you say you have him focus on power does this mean a lot of Olympic lifting or something like squats at a certain velocity?

ya, there are a half dozen asian guys on the 10.0 mark, now there is a 9.90 guy.

he's probably taking the new PED package which everybody is on.

which means it's kind of an even playing field, except for africa and other weakly tested areas

few people know that back in the day a chinese guy ran a wr in the 100, but they didn't count communist times, or perhaps , incorrectly documented times. and the Japanese guys were always fast, way back in the day they held all the jump records.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Long_jump_world_record_progression

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Triple_jump

all the golds in the 30's

chinese guy set high jump wr 3 x

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Men%27s_high_jump_world_record_progression

weird stat, germans set the 100 relay world record 7 times

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Men%27s_4_%C3%97_100_metres_relay_world_record_progression

Su Bingtian was a 10.45 100m man at age 18. In US, most likely a partial athletic grant at a D2, especially since he's short. Most short guys don't sprint well past 60m (if there're clean). In China, Bingtian received love and support with 10.45 as an 18 year old. 9.91 is very fast for a short guy. Bingtian is only 5'8".

Why no 200m sprinting?

Randy Huntington wrote:

I will speak to this. You have no idea how stringent the rules are in China and how severe the punishment. Su takes his role as a role model for Chinese youth very seriously. Doping is not even on the table in any manner.

Sure, sure

Thanks for your post - what a privilege! That being said, I really wish I could believe you - I've been disappointed way too may times.

That being said, I've analyzed a lot of Su's races, and I'm impressed at how he's able to get well into the 300s (or even 310s / 5.2 it seems) for SF. As a short guy, I know that's what it takes to get to reach the peak speeds of 11.5m/s (at least) for a 9.9 (theoretically, anyway). Since he operates at those SFs, I can see why he doesn't even touch the 200m.

I never said that he wasn't using. What I said was:

"This guy is a very impressive sprinter whose progression IMO bears none of the scars of PED use. That is NOT to say that he has not used; I have just used his progression to illustrate how it contrasts with those of other top sprint athletes who have actually been busted."

Forget about BJ, that was a different era with different PED's.

Yes many athletes exhibit that 0.50 bump when somewhat younger, but that age often coincides with them turning pro or being named to a national team, which among other things sometimes gives them access to doping, which is why you see the bump. It was notorious in Jamaican athletes at around 20 years of age, and has been evident in some American athletes as they have aged.

It is possible to have a reasonably smooth progression, like Gay, and still have used, but that is not the point.

Basic Livermore:

2012 10.39 24yrs

2014 10.02 26yrs

Improved 0.37 in 2 years, from 320th-330th in the world, to 13th in the world.

Basic Blake:

2005 10.28 19yrs

2007 9.86 21 yrs

-0.42 in 2 years, from around 130th basic in the world, to a tie for 4th basic in the world with Bolt, behind only Gay, Carter, and Powell. Later improved a further 0.17, for #1 in the world, ahead of Bolt, Gatlin, Powell, Gay, etc.

Basic Jeter:

2006 11.48 27yrs

2007 11.00 28yrs

2009 10.72 30yrs

After hovering around 11.5 for 4 years, improved 0.48 in 1 year, from around 140th in the world, to a tie for 3rd in the world with Torri Edwards. Then improves another 0.28 in 2 years to #1 in the world.

Basic Mullings:

2002 10.47 19yrs

2004 10.07 21yrs

2011 9.87 28yrs

0.40 improvement in 2 years, from around 400th in the world, to 14th in the world. Then 7 years later a 0.29 improvement in one year, to 5th in the world behind Bolt, Powell, Gay, and Blake.

Basic Ashmeade:

2010 10.41 20yrs

2012 10.11 22yrs

2013 9.92 23yrs

After having been at a 10.37-10.40 plateau for a full 4 years, Ashmeade improved 0.30 in 2 years, from around 275th in the world, to around 42nd in the world. Then another 0.19 improvement to 3rd in the world behind Bolt and Gatlin.

Basic Carter:

2005 10.56 19yrs

2007 10.16 21 yrs

2008 10.01 22 yrs

After his big half-second youth improvement from 2003-2004, Carter improved by 0.40 in 2 years, from around 650th-700th in the world, to around 40th in the world. Then another 0.15 improvement to 12th in the world.

Basic Powell:

2001 10.54 18yrs

2003 10.06 20yrs

2004 9.88 21 yrs

Improved 0.48 from somewhere around 520th in the world, to around 12th-14th in the world. Then another 0.18 improvement to a tie for #1 in the world, with Gatlin.

Basic White:

2000 11.29 23yrs

2003 10.86 26yrs

0.43 improvement in 3 years, finishing at #1 in the world, IIRC.

Basic Simpson:

2002 11.60 17yrs

2004 11.03 19yrs

2006 10.77 21yrs

0.57 improvement in 2 years (when young), followed by a further 0.26 improvement in the next 2 years to by far #1 in the world.

Basic Chambers:

1996 10.46 18yrs

1998 10.07 20yrs

0.39 improvement over 2 years. Yes this could have been a clean improvement (as with others, only performances from later years, 2002-2003 etc. in Chambers case, have been annulled).

Basic Bolt:

2007 10.07 19yrs

2008 9.69 20yrs

2009 9.62 21yrs

After big improvements when young, 0.38 improvement in 1 year to #1 all-time. 0.45 improvement in 2 years, to maybe the best we will ever see.

etc.

I could go on, there are even better examples. Among proven users' 100m progressions, there often appears a very quick jump of around 0.50s, which takes them from oblivion to the top of the world and sometimes to the top of history, either at the end of that 2 years, or very shortly thereafter.

Yes I know that neither Ashmeade nor Jeter nor Bolt has tested positive. I include them for illustrative purposes.

As I said, sometimes the improvements come while young, but that time in life coincides with getting out of HS and into a pro program. It is debatable if the improvement is due to training, maturation, drugs, or a combination of all of these factors. THERE IS NO DOUBT that those years can be huge in an athlete's development, just from a physiologic standpoint, there is no denying that.

And yes, looking at yearly averages is one way to go, especially if Clermont*, Eugene*, and maybe Rieti* are scrubbed. Or scrub the best and the worst, whichever way you wish to go. You are welcome to do the analysis if you have the time. If you don't, then you can't claim that going by SB is inaccurate. You can suggest that it is a weak methodology, but it could easily reflect the averages as well. I have done some of it with certain athletes, and using basic SB is surprisingly good in comparison.

So far, Su has 3 basic sub-10's to his credit this season, and 2 races just north of 10-flat. His basic sub-10's this season are 9.94, 9.95, and 9.96, his best placing him at 4th in the world so far, I think. You are right that he has been more consistent this season, but his max is at essentially the same level as his 2015 best. Going by averages, he is about 0.05 faster than his best averages from 2015-2017.

Note that his 4th-best placing in the world so far is at "only" 9.94, not some 9.8x or 9.7x basic time. Yes 9.94 basic is very, very fast, but not insanely fast. Again his 100m progression does not prove that he is clean, it is taken in context. Yes his average has improved, but not by much. Yes his best is top-5 this year, but not similarly excellent in an historic sense.

His basic 100m SB progression does not bear the 0.5-second signature that appears in many of the basic 100m SB progressions of proven users. Having said that, it is not known if PED's were responsible for those 0.50 improvements, or if they were just used afterwards as "polish", to take the athletes to the next (and often highest) level.

IMO the suddenness of the improvement and the consistency among athletes suggests that it is due to a common extrinsic factor.

I would welcome a more sophisticated analysis, to nail down whether or not there actually is a signature, and what exactly it might be.

Of those athletes I listed, the average improvement over 2 years was 0.426s

Average basic annual ranking after that 2-year period: 13th

Average basic annual ranking shortly thereafter: 4th

Many improvements to historic basic status, not just excellence within an individual season.

Yes, if you slice the baloney thinly enough, Su has IMO elevated himself to historic basic status if you consider his race. All the other athletes I have listed are black, and among whites there has been no standout, with many including Lemaitre at 10.0x-low basic, I think Tortu is the only one who has gone sub-10 and he is at something like 9.97 or 9.99...but racially, Su is so far definitely historic in a basic sense.

All these analysis of progressions are red herrings. You can't determine anything from them regarding doping.

Most here say Clayton Murphy is clean yet he improved from 1:54 to 1:42 in three years.

Kiprop was caught doping yet he steadily improved from a talented 18 year old running 3:35.

You can't tell doping from progressions. Correlation is not causation.

Unless you don't believe that PED's work in sprinting, you cannot so readily dismiss sprint progression as mere correlation, with athletes who are known to have used.

BY DEFINITION, some of their improvement is due to the PED's--that is the enhancement of performance. It is not unreasonable to expect to find a PED marker in that progression.

It would be very handy, however, if it was as cut-and-dried as a 0.40 or 0.50 improvement over 2 years, that resulted in vaulting an athlete from obscurity to one of the best in the world.

Unlike the valuable criticism from the other poster about my methodology being weak, your criticism seems to me to be invalid.

It's difficult to imagine anyone taking this guy seriously. He's long been outed as a teenager poster that merely regurgitates basic principles from Charlie Francis' and Jimson Lee's websites. None of his analyses are particularly special. All the information about Su's progression can be found on his IAAF profile. Wow, a normal progression! He must be clean! Anyone can observe that. By the way, he had a meltdown on Sprintzone after he felt no one was listening to him. Sad!