9.74 powell New world record

[Gamma]

sarry mi did figget the oly bronze....

[Karl]

I was just trying to make the point that if Asasfa wins no major Championship golds he will never be given the credit ( or the full financial compensation ) he deserves for his immense talent.

Agreed!

[Karl]

'Asafa must focus on running own race'

'Asafa must focus on running own race'

Sports psychologist analyses 100m world record-holder
DANIA BOGLE, Observer staff reporter bogled@jamaicaobserver.com
Wednesday, September 12, 2007


Richards... a good performance doesn't always equal a win (Photo: Lionel Rookwood)

IF world 100m record-holder Asafa Powell is to withstand the pressure of competing in track & field's big meets, he'll need to focus on running his own race and running consistently good times, INSPORTS' in-house sports psychologist Kadija Richards told the Observer.

"If he (Powell) were to focus more on his performance instead of his outcome, whether he is beating this particular person or not, then he would probably approach the race a little better," Richards said.

Powell lowered his own world record (9.77) in the heats of the Rieti Grand Prix meet in Italy on Sunday, slicing 0.03secs off his best to clock a stunning 9.74 seconds with a legal (+1.7 mps) wind.

The performance came exactly two weeks after favourite Powell claimed the bronze medal at the IAAF World Championships in Osaka, Japan, finishing behind the United States' Tyson Gay and Derrick Atkins of the Bahamas.

Powell later admitted he panicked upon realising that Gay was on his tail.

"I felt him (Gay) coming on me and started to panic and that just slowed me down as I lost concentration," Powell told the Observer then.

"I was leading until the end and I started to tighten up and lost the race from there as Tyson ran past me."

Richards, who has a Masters degree in sports behaviour and performance from Miami University in Ohio, said though she has not personally worked with Powell, indications are he needs to concentrate more on his own performances.

"It seems as if his focus is a little off in the approach he takes to each race... in Italy he had more of a performance-based approach... he focussed on his time and how he could run faster; at the World Championships he was focussing more on the competitive nature of Gay being there and that may have distracted him and caused the nervousness he claims he had been feeling.

"The nervousness will come as a result of focussing on something other than the goal at hand," Richards added.

Powell, in the meantime, was quoted by the CMC as saying smashing the world record again does not make up for his disappointment in Osaka.

"There the expectations were too high," he said. "I thought too much about the world record but I have done a lot of work in the last two weeks (since the Osaka 100m). I learnt again to run from the start and to be more relaxed."

Richards, a former national tennis representative who also worked with the national senior cricket team, thinks it's unfair of track & field pundits who say Powell can only do well at one-day events but can't perform at big events like the World Champs and Olympics.

Powell was disqualified in the quarter-finals of the 2003 Paris WC for a false start and finished fifth at the Athens Olympics a year later.

"Even though he's the fastest man in the world he's still human and... is relatively young... he has time to improve and with the right training staff and coaching team he should be able to... and be more consistent in the bigger meets," Richards stated.

"Time is what wins the race... he should keep focussing on time because when he focusses on the other people in the race those things distract and cause you to get nervous and when you get nervous that has physiological implications as well... it makes your body tense, you tighten up, you start looking all over the place and your technique starts going through the door."

Richards, who has been employed to INSPORTS since 2005 to work professionally with national representatives, said it was crucial not to discount the abilities of other athletes in an event.

"A good performance doesn't always equal a win... it may be that the other guy is better on the day... it's not always that you're inferior because somebody beats you...," she added.

Richards concurred with consultant psychiatrists Dr Aggrey Irons and Dr Wendel Abel who recently told the Observer of the need to focus more on the psychology of the athlete in addition to the physical conditioning.

"I think people need to approach sports with more of a professional attitude... the management, coaches, business people to understand that it's not just something you do for fun, but... sports is a billion-dollar industry and something we should take seriously and we need to invest a little more in it as a profession so that people can excel," she stated.

[Karl]

It's like Federer beating everyone in straight sets all year and then losing first round in the majors, to a qualifier.

Asafa is truly one of a kind, in more ways than one!

Asafa? First round?
Come?! Come?!

[Mosiah]

She needed a degree to come up with that?