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Usain Bolt celebrates victory at Crystal Palace
Sunday July 26,2009
By Richard Jolly
KNEES pumping, arms outstretched and looking from side to side in a vain search for his rivals, Usain Bolt crosses the line, already preparing to look at the clock. It soon shows the record-breaking time: 9.69 seconds. Some five metres behind Bolt, Jesse Owens is running the fastest 100 metres of his life.
A further four metres adrift – and almost 10 metres behind Bolt – is Harold Abrahams, Britain’s 1924 Olympic champion and the sprinter who was immortalised in the film Chariots Of Fire. He will finish a second-and-a-half ahead of Tom Burke, the American who won the 100m in 1896.
It is the sort of race that could only be created on a computer, but Bolt would leave runners from earlier eras trailing.
Even the disgraced Ben Johnson would lose a tenth of a second over 100m at his drug-fuelled fastest.
Owens was a phenomenon, a man who embarrassed Adolf Hitler in the Berlin Olympics in 1936. His personal best of 10.2 seconds went unbeaten for two decades. Now such times would be extremely unlikely to earn him a place in an Olympic or World Championship final.
Even running into a headwind at Aviva London Grand Prix at Crystal Palace on Friday, Bolt clocked 9.91seconds for a victory which was almost routine.
And at seven inches taller and two stone heavier than Owens was at his peak, it is Bolt’s physique which has made his success all the more remarkable, according to Dr Steve Ingham, head of physiology at the English Institute of Sport.
He said: “Bolt is tall (6ft 5ins) and quite rangy, which is unusual – 100m runners tend to be shorter, stockier athletes.
“But Bolt’s 10m splits are right up there with some of the best 100m sprinters. This suggests that his ‘explosivity’ is no less than those who have gone before him.
“The key quality that all sprinters share is a high proportion of fast ‘twitch fibres’ – the explosive ones that access energy quickly.
“I see thigh muscle samples of the power athletes at the EIS – these are made up of 90 per cent fast-twitch fibres, while the average person will have a 50-50 split.
“Bolt’s explosivity suggests he has an even higher proportion of fast-twitch fibres, along with other advantages.
“One of Bolt’s most distinctive qualities in ‘lever length’ – the length of his legs. It gives him a great advantage over his competitors.
“Maurice Greene took 50 strides to win the 100m at the 2000 Sydney Olympics, while Bolt took only 41 to in Beijing last summer. The difference that makes is simply in the degree of fatigue.
“And Bolt’s ability to stay relaxed is the key to his success, and no one does relaxed quite like Bolt.”
The Jamaican also has the potential to make history in the 400m, challenging Michael Johnson’s 43.18 seconds record, according to Peter Weyand, a professor of applied physiology and biomechanics in Texas.
He said: “The average stature of elite sprinters does increase from 100m to 200m specialists and again from 200m to 400m specialists, suggesting Bolt would be more dominant at 400m than at 100 and 200m.”
Bolt is thought to have a peak speed of around 27mph and averaged more than 23mph in his 200m final in Beijing last year. But how much faster could anyone go?
Weyand said: “Within two to five decades we will probably see dramatically faster times, perhaps one to three seconds faster over 100 metres or conceivably more.
“As gene technology develops and is inevitably used for gene doping, which biologists consider probable in the next 20 years, these estimates are conservative.
“The fastest animal muscle fibres that could be expressed in a human leg via gene doping will allow contractions and running.
“Muscle fibres that contract as quickly as those of a mouse would allow humans to take at least two to three seconds off Bolt’s current world record and more likely four or five seconds.”
It might sound like something out of science fiction, but that would mean an athlete capable of finishing his race while Bolt had run only 50 or 60 metres.
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