I think he could have broken the WR had the competition still been running. The 1st attempt was unlucky, and I believe he could have gotten closer to 6.3m or so as well
2021 Summer Olympics (Tokyo)
- Thread starter Samid
- Start date
I think he could have broken the WR had the competition still been running. The 1st attempt was unlucky, and I believe he could have gotten closer to 6.3m or so as well
Mbola is a man as far as I’m concerned. They have XY chromosomes don’t they? Everyone keeps saying DSD which clouds a very simple issue. This is men racing women.
https://www.sportsintegrityinitiative.com/dsd-regulations-call-out-athletes-as-biologically-male/
Forever? At some point it has to plateau, surely?
I'm aware of marginal gains and improvements in technology for the equipment used seems to be where it's at now but there has to be a physical limit to what the human body can do.
I think we should have a “steroids plus anything else goes”olympics. Let’s see what the bodies actually capable of when it’s pumped full of everything.
What they ⬆ said.
Humans develop in all sorts of areas and an improved understanding of the human body’s capabilities plus science/computers (training techniques) plus the incremental changes to the human race (height for example) means records by stars like Aiouta, Johnson, Lewis have been beaten and future athletes will beat the current/new ones.
This isn't the thread for it but it's a much more nuanced issue than the yes/no dichotomy you're presenting.
and of course, there are no question marks around any of those old record holders.
No idea. Personally, I think they were generational talents who worked hard and got the results… maybe I give certain countries the benefit of the doubt that we didn’t used to give to say East Germany
They were all doping. Carl Lewis admitted that he failed drug tests that were covered up but takes the line that the drugs didn't do anything! It's obviously impossible to disentangle it all to see who was really legit and who got unfair advantages. I guess in the case of East Germany and how severe and systematic their doping programme was it's more easy to write off their achievements.
As you may have gathered I'm extremely cynical about the whole thing
With the advancements in sports science and biomechanics where a computer tells you how to get the 0.01s extra by moving your hands and legs in a certain way has helped a lot as well.
Although, with that having been said, I'd say breaking Bolt's records will be really tough and we may reach a time pretty soon where records will stand for longer periods in time especially in short distance races.
I'm sure no one would've believed you 50 years ago if you said that the marathon WR would be 10min down in 2020 yet here we are. We keep evolving and records are there to be broken. There will be a day when there's a faster sprinter than Bolt, a higher pole vault jumper than Duplantis, a better marathon runner than Kipchoge. Not just natural evolution theory but also indeed like others have mentioned: training methods, more advanced recovery tactics, better nutrition, better equipment and so on.
I'm not sure, maybe it's just because there's no true superstar sprinter at the moment that it looks that way but eventually there'll be a time when a new Jamaican or USA phenomenon comes around. Coupled with better training, equipment and maybe mentality than Bolt, it's bound to be broken sometime in our lifetime I'd say.
Same story for Maradona and Messi, Michael Johnson and Bolt, Bubka and Duplantis, even Jordan and LeBron to a lesser extent, ... Johnson's 19.32 was deemed extraordinary but it "only" stood for 12 years and in the end Bolt shaved more than a tenth of a second off of it. Eventually, there'll always come a faster person.
Could well be right. I may be being naive but I do think the Coe/Ovett/Cram battles of the early/mid 80s were real… ?As you may have gathered I'm extremely cynical about the whole thing
Hope they were
Possible, but in 100m, I believe we're heading towards the threshold quite quickly. Although, I do think Bolt could have gotten close to 9.55 had he not started celebrating prematurely in Beijing when he got 9.68 (9.69?).
Add to that, among the top 25 times posted in 100m, none of the athletes barring him and Brommell (whose PB is 9.78s) have a clean record when it comes to doping, which tells you a lot about how ridiculous Bolt's records are. Obviously, I expect Bolt's WR to be broken in our lifetime, but the frequency of the WR being broken for short distance sprints will keep going down.
I'm a long-time advocate of the Gear Games, too!
https://www.instagram.com/reel/CHyEnY9Kohk/?utm_medium=copy_link
@Withnail
Have you seen this? Those are 6mm edges. The guy’s incredible. Don’t think he’s won any major comps before. Be brilliant if he got a medal.
@Withnail
Have you seen this? Those are 6mm edges. The guy’s incredible. Don’t think he’s won any major comps before. Be brilliant if he got a medal.
Big, big win for Galal Yafai in the flyweight division today against Josvany Veitia of Cuba.
Tough match to score but the first round did clearly go to Gafai in my opinion. Over the contest, I saw the better work coming from the Cuban but Galal having more output and scoring shots. Would be interested to see the punch stats but great result for Galal who showed what he's capable of.
Tough match to score but the first round did clearly go to Gafai in my opinion. Over the contest, I saw the better work coming from the Cuban but Galal having more output and scoring shots. Would be interested to see the punch stats but great result for Galal who showed what he's capable of.
Wowzer, that is some strength. Fingers! Just amazing
Strength and toughness. Pulling hard on small edges like that is fecking excruciating.
Humans will never stop going faster, the thing is it will be asymptomic. Improvements will go from tenths, to hundreths, then thousandths etc. We'll keep improving but the margins will become smaller and smaller.
Climbers have ridiculous strength. I once watched a training video of Jan Hojer, who is also at these Olympics, and he did front levers with just his two pinky fingers in a hang board, one-arm pull-ups and other extremely difficult stuff for fun.
Someone's going to make a joke about pinky fingers, aren't they?
Someone's going to make a joke about pinky fingers, aren't they?
Speed climbing never seen it before.
OMG they are fast
OMG they are fast
They’ve already done it it’s called The Olympics
Jaysus! That's some finger strength.
I had a go on one of those fingerboards once in gravity early on without any doing any research or asking questions, like a fool, and was out of action for two weeks with a sprained finger.
Ha! You need to take it slow, that’s for sure. A worthwhile investment though. I was fingerboarding like a mad man during lockdown. Reckon I’m at least half a grade stronger now, despite only being back at it properly for a few weeks.
Can’t stress enough how difficult those tiny edges are though. I wouldn’t be able to get my feet off the floor for even a fraction of a second on the 6mm edges he’s using in that video (plus I’d probably be in tears with the pain afterwards)
Agree and I'm not questioning this bit. My argument is that we're heading to a point in 100m races where the frequency of WR being broken is going to decrease significantly. Like I said, the fastest time posted by an athlete not named Bolt and who hasn't ever been caught in doping scandal is Brommell at 9.78, which is 0.2s slower than current WR.
Obviously, all it takes is one run by an inspired athlete to break the record, but I'd be surprised if we manage to see the current WR broken twice or thrice in our lifetime here on (note the record was broken 8 times legally between '99 and '09, and never since)
I watched a good video on youtube that stated that human biology is practically impossible to go beyond around 9.4.
We simply cannot accelerate to and maintain a top speed fast enough for the rest of the distance.
True. There's very little evidence in athletics that the athletes have become superior in the last 20 years or so and have mostly levelled off or declined in the last 30 years. Most of the fat was chewed off decades ago and the majority of any meaningful improvements arise from equipment - track or spikes - rather than a higher calibre of athlete. The men's 100m is a good case in point as it has basically plateaued around 9.8s and the only runners who have dipped under aside from Bolt have positive drugs tests. And even those guys 'only' got as far as 9.7 (we can include Ben Johnson in here too). That's how much of an outlier Bolt is.
An interesting question would be how fast would greats from previous eras be with the advantage of these spikes and faster tracks. For instance, is Edwin Moses' 400mh 47.02 worth a second faster? Is Seb Coe's 1.41.7 in the 800m worth 1.38-39 now?
Admittedly I thought Johnson's record would stand longer than it has done. But Bolt is the only clean runner who has gone faster. Apart from Bolt's records in 2008 and 2009, Johnson's 19.32 still wins each of the 24 other championships ever since 1996. We could be 50 years until another Bolt appears, given in the previous half-century, it was only Ben Johnson who put those sorts of margins into his competitors.
You might and some people may too but that doesn't make her a man.
Biologically it does...gender identity maybe a different issue. But the split in sports should be biologically driven.
Too fast times because of technology feels a bit hollow, should be buzzing after watching a world record but it is almost breaking the nature of the events. Yes, I understand how ridiculous that can come across given how PEDS have impacted athletics.
The conversation about how world records are being beaten regularly due to improvements in science has made me think how extraordinary Jonathan Edward's triple jump record is.
Who’s getting up with me at 3:45am tonight to watch the 40meter plank finn class beach badminton till 91kg?
Eesh. That’s Bassa’s olympics over.
Ouch. And he had a real good run on the speeds. Such a shame. Hopefully his brother can get a medal.
Was in the office today and while we had it on, couldn't pay full attention so catching up now
Saw a clip of the climbing, which I'll watch properly later, on the catch up highlights show, they looked like spiderman, almost running up the wall, it was insane!
Can only tall people do the climbing? Don't think I'd be able to reach the hand holds
Saw a clip of the climbing, which I'll watch properly later, on the catch up highlights show, they looked like spiderman, almost running up the wall, it was insane!
Can only tall people do the climbing? Don't think I'd be able to reach the hand holds
Do you mean Michael Johnson? Ben Johnson was the 100m runner who broke the WR then got caught doping in the 1988 Olympics.
Such a huge day for the sport of wrestling. I love it