Sporting achievements that make you weep

[davieddy]

IIRC that was some sports clothing logo a year or so back.
(Not dissimilar to FCUK, or that trendy clothes shop (chain?) in the
King's road "Soixante-Neuf". "Very subtle" I thought at the time.

Much as I enjoy Bolt and Johnson, give me Carl Lewis any day.
It's that "Je ne sais quoi". Elegant running.
Like Colin Jackson or Jessica Ennis (or of course Ed Moses).

Sailing and rowing were my chief bodily sports.
Ben Ainsley was born to it. Steve Redgrave achieved it,
but it was thrust upon him because someone failed to shoot him!

David

[davieddy]

Originally Posted by Flatlander

What made Jonathan Edwards so good at 3-jump?

As a physicist, I recognize "Colemanballs" when listening to
(admittedly charismatic) commentators using terms like
"momentum" or "centrifugal force".

Having just watched the TJ final, Philipsodowu and that young
Yank that beat him, I admired their ability to maintain their forward
speed while "taking off" again.

I think what Jonathon Edwards did was to treat the step and jump
as distinct enterprises: "Why not boost (as opposed to maintaining)
your momentum?".

Not surprised about frequent injury

David

[davieddy]

When I mentioned this to my friend Tim, he retorted
"I thought Cavendish was some laboratory in Cambridge".

David

[Flatlander]

Around here they would probably think it was a takeaway.

[davieddy]

Originally Posted by Flatlander

Around here they would probably think it was a takeaway.

I may be a bit inebriated/obtuse but this requires a tadge of
elaboration for me ATM.

David

PS or should I go on a flying visit to Gatwick?
Second thoughts, probably get arrested for FA before I reached Luton.
Passport too expensive to renew anyway.

[Flatlander]

Was just a pun on the last syllable.
I also had in mind the huge queue at the chip shop I passed last night. Wouldn't get that at Weight Watchers.

[science_man_88]

http://ca.sports.yahoo.com/nfl/blog/...urn=nfl-wp9357

does this count ? kinda sad dead colleague ? and a man down on the play.

[R. Gerbicz]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_c...&v=5gKnrLK9f4o
A really long jump.

[MooMoo2]

Oldie but goodie - Kenyan runs a 3:43 mile and loses the race: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XvCsj7eJKKA

I still can't believe how fast the winner ran. That's what, 55.46" per lap?! To be fair, three of those laps were from a running start and not a standing start, but that's still insane. Heck, I trained for over a decade to maintain his pace for just around a quarter of the distance!

400 meter time          Date
1 min 40 sec.           3/25/2000
1 min 33 sec.           4/1/2000
1 min 31 sec.           4/21/2000
1 min 30 sec.           4/26/2000 (age 11)
1 min 28 sec.           11/18/2000
1 min 27 sec.           11/19/2000
1 min 25 sec.           11/27/2000
1 min 23 sec.           12/1/2000
1 min 20 sec.           4/14/2001
1 min 17.88 sec.        7/9/2001
1 min 14.62 sec.        8/3/2001
1 min 9.59 sec.         8/15/2001 (age 12)
1 min 9.16 sec.         6/12/2002 
1 min 4.57 sec.         8/2/2002
1 min 3.88 sec.         8/29/2002
1 min 3.06 sec.         9/15/2002 (age 13)
1 min 2.89 sec.         4/24/2003
1 min 2.15 sec.         5/16/2003
1 min 1.58 sec.         7/14/2003
1 min 0.47 sec.         7/25/2003 (age 14)
??? - couldn't find records from '04-'13, but don't recall running faster than 56.9"
56.56 sec.              1/11/2014
55.86 sec.              2/15/2014 (age 25)

My four best 400 times at:
Age 14 - 60.47", 61.25", 61.41", 61.58" (most recent of those times was on 8/25/2003)
Age 30 - 55.86", 56.00", 56.05", 56.08" (most recent of those times was on 3/30/2019)

With the benefit of hindsight, I plotted my progress from 2000-2003 and tried fitting trendlines to see what my predicted times would be. Interestingly enough, the second-order polynomial trendline predicted that I would never run under 60", while the linear trendline predicted that I'd be breaking the 43" world record by early 2005. Hmmm...

Plotting velocity instead of time on the y-axis gave better results. The linear trendline predicted that I would be breaking the world record by early 2007, and the polynomial trendline predicted that I'd peak at 7.26 m/s (55.1"). The latter was close to my ultimate best of 7.16 m/s, so maybe I did max out my potential after all.