Was Ben Johnson faster than Powell?

He ran a 19.75 at the old US Sports Festival in 1983 ... in fact, a poster mentioned how "silly" it would look if a sprinter kept both arms aloft in the last 10 metres of a race.

As it happens, that exactly what Lewis did: Both arms held high as he ran the last five or six strides of a 19.75 200 metres. It was amazing to watch.

Interestingly, it was the same day on which he jumped 8.79 metres in the long jump and was said to have broken 30 feet on a fouled attempt that was never officially measured or recorded.

Martin

Is there any evidence against Calvin Smith (4th place in the 1988 100) ? I was the under the impression that he has not been implicated with any hard evidence - except the guilt by association of being a US sprinter in the late 1980's.

0-60metre=6.10+.1RT=6.20 composite WR****(real WR 6.39)

add a realistic(reaction time .15) start, you get a 6.25 a more realistic compositeWR.

So we get to 60 metres at 6.25 and add .83x4 =9.57.

Not in my lifetime but I'm older than the A-Bomb.

I'm 90% sure a HS kid today will see under 9.70 in his lifetime.

But that is why we hold the race...to see if!

Martin X tht was exactly wot i was thinkin, i want to know if MJ was actually quicker than Mo greene, i mean like his top speed.

mikewats wrote:

Martin X tht was exactly wot i was thinkin, i want to know if MJ was actually quicker than Mo greene, i mean like his top speed.

Almost all signs point to "no".

MJ's 100m PR is obviously much worse than Mo, though he rarely ran the event. But even if you look at his amazing 19.32 run, there is no way that any 10m segment is close to as fast as Mo runs in his fastest races.

Asterix wrote:

HHH wrote:

The last 20m he ran with his arm in the air.

It was nowhere near 20m that his arm was in the air.

Looking at the race, there is almost no perceptable slowing even once he has raised his arm. At the speed he was going, 0.01 seconds would account for about 10cm (0.1m or about 4 inches for the metrically challenged). I haven't seen any replay that would suggest to me he lost more than 0.01 or 0.02 seconds due to his premature celebration.

According to the official splits Johnson covered the last 10m in 0.90, the previous 10m in 0.87 and before that 0.85. Lewis & Christie covered their last 10m in 0,88.

Phil. wrote:

Asterix wrote:

It was nowhere near 20m that his arm was in the air.

Looking at the race, there is almost no perceptable slowing even once he has raised his arm. At the speed he was going, 0.01 seconds would account for about 10cm (0.1m or about 4 inches for the metrically challenged). I haven't seen any replay that would suggest to me he lost more than 0.01 or 0.02 seconds due to his premature celebration.

According to the official splits Johnson covered the last 10m in 0.90, the previous 10m in 0.87 and before that 0.85. Lewis & Christie covered their last 10m in 0,88.

So? Extrapolating splits from other runners is pointless, and obviously there will be some slowing at the end of the race (in regards to the 0.90 vs. his own 0.87).

The truth is, no way BJ runs faster than 9.76 AT MOST had he not put his arm up/"slowed" at the end. 9.77 is probably a good estimate of what he was capable of.

Jesse Owens may have 'only' run 10.3 (about 10.55 FAT?), BUT....

He was wearing shoes made of leather, with enormous spikes in them, making them heavy.

He was running on cinder.

And he did not have the benefit of modern training techniques.

So add in a 7oz shoe, on mondo, after three or four years of proper sprint training...

(and he wasn't even the best 100m man of the day)