The work is behind the scenes

... competition is the easy part.

The ten second barrier

Pei Meng Zhang -- 10.00 in the 100m in the semis at the IAAF World Championships 2013. Same time as Christophe Lemaitre, who was allowed to advance ahead of Zhang. At 6"1 190 Zhang is pretty big for a sprinter. With his skinny upper body I'm guessing he's clean ;-)

Given the wind reading Zhang has the best performance yet for an Asian, slightly ahead of Koji Ito (also 10.00, 1998). On the world all-time list this is around 100th best among all individuals. Lemaitre is the fastest European, with PR 9.92 (about 35th best). He's a very unusual 6"4 160 (at least according to Wikipedia).

Superman Bolt: 9.58 100m!

Far behind in second was Tyson Gay, whose 9.71 would be the fastest ever were it not for Bolt. Teammate Asafa Powell (who has run 9.72, third fastest of all time) came in behind Gay. So in this race Bolt smashed his own record from Beijing and destroyed the #2 and #3 fastest sprinters of all time. Bolt is the greatest of all time!

Phelps, shmelps -- Bolt is the man

9.69 -- and he strolled across the finish line while beating his chest with no one even close! Bolt is 6 foot 5 and only 21 years old. I think Michael Johnson's record in the 200m is in jeopardy. Bolt is probably the greatest of all time, assuming he's clean.

NBC: ...With a full seven strides to go, he dropped his arms and let them fall outstretched to his sides, appearing almost to run sideways as he played to the sold-out crowd of 91,000 at the Bird's Nest. Just before the finish line, he started high-stepping and, for good measure, executed a chest-thump.

All that, and still -- 9.69 seconds. Bolt simply ran away from the rest of the best of the world.

"I was just saying I'm No. 1," Bolt said later. "This is what I came out here to do, and I made it."


BBC: ...Michael Johnson described [it] as "the greatest 100m performance in the history of the event".

Johnson, a multiple Olympic champion who still holds the 200m and 400m world records, told BBC Sport: "He shut down with 10m to go. We have never seen anything like it before.

"It's absolutely amazing. Asafa Powell and Tyson Gay cannot run with him. He is a show unto himself."

Remember what I said about Jamaican track a month ago during the Olympic trials...



I was a competitive swimmer from age 7 through college. My high school team won a state title my junior year and conference titles all four years I was on the team. We had numerous All-Americans and state champions. I'm still ranked (barely) on the all-time list. But the best athlete I ever competed against was a running back who had been an LA sprint champion and had turned down Division I football scholarships to attend Caltech (he was 6 foot 2 and around 190-200). I could not lay a hand on him in the open field and he was incredibly strong in the weight room even though he never trained. (Most swimmers are shockingly weak when it comes to lifts.) During our senior year scouts from USFL teams were still looking him over as a free safety, despite his not having played high level ball in college. There is no comparison between the quality of athlete in amateur, fringe Olympic sports and the big money sports like football and basketball.

Phelps, shmelps.