I am absolutely awestruck by Bolt's performance. It is really hard to find words to describe what we just witnessed. The fact that his two 100 meter world records came in the finals of the Olympic Games and the World Championship, by itself is amazing. He beat the best. I am trying to put it in a historical context and imagine where all the past great sprinters in history would have finished. The fact that Gay ran 9.71, broke the American record and finished second is amazing in and of itself. Gay ran a technically beautiful, flawless race. Bolts technique is also flawless. Tommy Smith with muscles? His start is precise, certainly not hindered by limb length. I was surprised by one view of the race from head on that showed no lateral deviation at the start, his steps were right in line. I am real interested to see the 10 meter splits. I just hope and pray that this guy is clean. It is a real shame to have to think that, but in today's world who knows. He deserves all the superlatives he is getting. His coach Glenn Mills deserves kudos for bring him along and guiding him to this level.
2 Comments
Robert Troch
You said it all there Vern. My jaw is hanging open. This guy (if hopefully he is clean) has got to be considered one of the best and its only been 2 years. he runs his best when it counts, his acceleration phase is pretty phenomenal for a tall guy and STRONG! Tommie Smith with muscles sounds close. He got out the blocks fast and most of the energy seems to be directed to doing nothing except driving down the track. Whew!
There have been a few legendary races but nothing that I remember that was like this was.
Jonathan Hewitt
Vern,
Just from the grainy video I saw it looked like BOlt had quite a bit more frontal plane movement compared to the rest of the field and also on his start it appeared that his arms were crossing over his body. I’m not a track coach so I can’t speak on sprint form very well. Would you be willing to share your comments on whether you saw the same things and what your opinion is? Again I’m not a sprint coach but isn’t sprint form taught to prevent the arms from crossing the body? I guess the reasoning is to transfer energy formward and not in the transverse or frontal plane?