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Bolt by the numbers times two
BERLIN — The video doesn’t lie. And neither do the numbers.
The video of Usain Bolt’s world-record run here Thursday in the 200 meters is already an instant classic.
And a statistical breakdown made available Friday by track and field’s governing body, the IAAF, underscores just how dominating his performance really was. From the get-to through to the line, and a time of 19.19, a historic performance in every regard.
One that prompted him, as he was announced for Friday night’s awards ceremony to the pop of flashbulbs around historic Olympic Stadium, to leap onto the podium and make a motion as if he were an airplane taking flight. And then repeated the gesture after the Jamaican flag was raised and the anthem played.
Bolt has, moreover, become a personality so large that the crowd sang him “Happy Birthday,” in honor of his 23rd birthday Friday, virtually everyone inside the stadium joining in — an echo of the scene just outside moments before, when a gaggle of squealing teen-age girls held back by a flimsy rope line and some watchful German security guards warbled “Happy Birthday” to their record-setting hero.
Bolt, according to the “biomechanical analysis,” a special statistics-related performed by an IAAF team for virtually all the finals here at the 2009 World Championships, was out of the blocks first in the field of eight, in 0.133 seconds.
No one else was even close. Steve Mullings, who would finish fifth, turned in the second-best reaction time, 0.146.
Panama’s Alonso Edward, who would finish second in the race in 19.81, an absurd 62-hundredths of a second behind Bolt, got out slowly — in 0.179, worst among all eight.
American Wallace Spearmon, who would take third in a season-best 19.89, got out of the blocks third, in 0.148.
What do the out-of-the-blocks numbers make plain?
The race for gold was over at the first step.
From there the only issue was whether Bolt could go better than the 19.30 he went last summer in the 200 final in Beijing — breaking the 19.32 that Michael Johnson had set in those gold shoes at the 1996 Atlanta Summer Olympics.
Here in Berlin, Bolt turned the first 50 of Thursday night’s 200 in 5.6.
He did the next 50 in 4.32.
Before moving on, pause just briefly — only brief pauses allowed when considering increments of seconds — to consider that. The greatest speed in the 200 is in that second 50, around the curve. Bolt did it in 4.32 seconds.
4.32!
For comparison, Edward went 4.49, Spearmon 4.53. Shawn Crawford, the 2004 Athens 200 champion, silver-medalist in Beijing, fourth here Thursday — he pulled that second 50 in 4.42.
At 100 meters, then, Bolt was at 9.92.
Some comparisons:
Bolt ran 9.58 Sunday night in the open 100, a mark that shattered his then-world record 9.69 from Beijing.
The 9.58 is here merely for entertainment purposes. It’s totally apples-and-oranges to compare that 100 with the first 100 of the 200 because, among other things, of the curve.
Also for entertainment purposes: Bolt ran the third leg of the world record-setting and gold medal-winning 4×100 relay last summer in Beijing. That leg is around the same curve as the first 100 of the open 200. His time for that Beijing relay leg: 8.9.
But of course that 8.9 includes a flying start.
Bolt’s next 50 meters here Thursday night went down in 4.52 seconds. That put him at 14.44 seconds for 150 meters.
Crawford was second at 150, in 14.80.
Mullings was third, in 14.93; Edward, fourth, in 15-flat; Spearmon, fifth in 15.06.
From there, Mullings and Crawford faded.
Mullings turned in a final 50 in 5.05, Crawford in 5.09.
Edward went 4.81.
Spearmon came on hard in 4.79.
But, again, Bolt was best — in 4.75.
Bolt’s final 100, when for someone else the legs would be screaming and the lungs burning: 9.27.
9.27!
Bolt’s second 100 Thursday: 65-hundredths of a second faster than the first.
One more set of numbers, by the way, underscores Bolt’s unique status in track and field.
Here are the attendance figures from Sunday night (the 100 final) and Thursday night (200):
Sunday: 51,113.
Thursday: 57.939.
Now here are the numbers for the nights when Bolt was not center stage:
Saturday: 42,546.
Monday: 30,946.
Tuesday: 29,897.
Wednesday: 32,158.
And now a break from the numbers to again point out not only Bolt’s emergence as one of the central figures on the Olympic scene but his embrace of such a role, noticeably more comfortable this year than last in the spotlight. He willingly signed autographs Friday at the stadium for a solid half-hour.
Last year, International Olympic Committee president Jacques Rogge scolded Bolt for Bolt’s exuberance in the 9.69 100.Guess who is now spokesman in an IOC campaign that inquires, what do you think of the Olympics?
As Usain Bolt likes to say — anything really is possible.
BERLIN — The video doesn’t lie. And neither do the numbers.
The video of Usain Bolt’s world-record run here Thursday in the 200 meters is already an instant classic.
And a statistical breakdown made available Friday by track and field’s governing body, the IAAF, underscores just how dominating his performance really was. From the get-to through to the line, and a time of 19.19, a historic performance in every regard.
One that prompted him, as he was announced for Friday night’s awards ceremony to the pop of flashbulbs around historic Olympic Stadium, to leap onto the podium and make a motion as if he were an airplane taking flight. And then repeated the gesture after the Jamaican flag was raised and the anthem played.
Bolt has, moreover, become a personality so large that the crowd sang him “Happy Birthday,” in honor of his 23rd birthday Friday, virtually everyone inside the stadium joining in — an echo of the scene just outside moments before, when a gaggle of squealing teen-age girls held back by a flimsy rope line and some watchful German security guards warbled “Happy Birthday” to their record-setting hero.
Bolt, according to the “biomechanical analysis,” a special statistics-related performed by an IAAF team for virtually all the finals here at the 2009 World Championships, was out of the blocks first in the field of eight, in 0.133 seconds.
No one else was even close. Steve Mullings, who would finish fifth, turned in the second-best reaction time, 0.146.
Panama’s Alonso Edward, who would finish second in the race in 19.81, an absurd 62-hundredths of a second behind Bolt, got out slowly — in 0.179, worst among all eight.
American Wallace Spearmon, who would take third in a season-best 19.89, got out of the blocks third, in 0.148.
What do the out-of-the-blocks numbers make plain?
The race for gold was over at the first step.
From there the only issue was whether Bolt could go better than the 19.30 he went last summer in the 200 final in Beijing — breaking the 19.32 that Michael Johnson had set in those gold shoes at the 1996 Atlanta Summer Olympics.
Here in Berlin, Bolt turned the first 50 of Thursday night’s 200 in 5.6.
He did the next 50 in 4.32.
Before moving on, pause just briefly — only brief pauses allowed when considering increments of seconds — to consider that. The greatest speed in the 200 is in that second 50, around the curve. Bolt did it in 4.32 seconds.
4.32!
For comparison, Edward went 4.49, Spearmon 4.53. Shawn Crawford, the 2004 Athens 200 champion, silver-medalist in Beijing, fourth here Thursday — he pulled that second 50 in 4.42.
At 100 meters, then, Bolt was at 9.92.
Some comparisons:
Bolt ran 9.58 Sunday night in the open 100, a mark that shattered his then-world record 9.69 from Beijing.
The 9.58 is here merely for entertainment purposes. It’s totally apples-and-oranges to compare that 100 with the first 100 of the 200 because, among other things, of the curve.
Also for entertainment purposes: Bolt ran the third leg of the world record-setting and gold medal-winning 4×100 relay last summer in Beijing. That leg is around the same curve as the first 100 of the open 200. His time for that Beijing relay leg: 8.9.
But of course that 8.9 includes a flying start.
Bolt’s next 50 meters here Thursday night went down in 4.52 seconds. That put him at 14.44 seconds for 150 meters.
Crawford was second at 150, in 14.80.
Mullings was third, in 14.93; Edward, fourth, in 15-flat; Spearmon, fifth in 15.06.
From there, Mullings and Crawford faded.
Mullings turned in a final 50 in 5.05, Crawford in 5.09.
Edward went 4.81.
Spearmon came on hard in 4.79.
But, again, Bolt was best — in 4.75.
Bolt’s final 100, when for someone else the legs would be screaming and the lungs burning: 9.27.
9.27!
Bolt’s second 100 Thursday: 65-hundredths of a second faster than the first.
One more set of numbers, by the way, underscores Bolt’s unique status in track and field.
Here are the attendance figures from Sunday night (the 100 final) and Thursday night (200):
Sunday: 51,113.
Thursday: 57.939.
Now here are the numbers for the nights when Bolt was not center stage:
Saturday: 42,546.
Monday: 30,946.
Tuesday: 29,897.
Wednesday: 32,158.
And now a break from the numbers to again point out not only Bolt’s emergence as one of the central figures on the Olympic scene but his embrace of such a role, noticeably more comfortable this year than last in the spotlight. He willingly signed autographs Friday at the stadium for a solid half-hour.
Last year, International Olympic Committee president Jacques Rogge scolded Bolt for Bolt’s exuberance in the 9.69 100.Guess who is now spokesman in an IOC campaign that inquires, what do you think of the Olympics?
As Usain Bolt likes to say — anything really is possible.
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