Sporting achievements that make you weep

[davieddy]

There are the surprising and unsurprising.

In the latter category is Tironesh Dibaba.
You have watched her jog around in 2nd or 3rd place in a 5/10 km race,
and you know she is going to win with her blistering last lap.

The bell for the last lap sounds, and in twenty meters it is clear nobody
stands a snowball's chance in hell of catching her. No matter.
Just for the hell/joy of it, she wins by about the length of the straight.

In the former I would place Usain Bolt.
The 100m in Beijing (2008), OK we thought he could set a world record, but
the nonchalance and the margin....
Now Michael Johnson's 19.32 for the 200m beat the previous mark by
~0.5s, and looked likely to stick around for a long time, but Bolt beat that.

He is so famous for Beijing, that folk seem to forget that the next year
(World championships Stuttgart?) he bettered both records.

People are wondering whether or not he is on the right track for the 2012
olympics. IMO he has nothing left to prove.
He's already in the Carl Lewis, Ed Moses and Sergei Bubka (and that
girl polevaulter) class. (I could add a string of others to that list of course).

David

[cheesehead]

Originally Posted by davieddy

In the former I would place Usain Bolt.
The 100m in Beijing (2008), OK we thought he could set a world record, but
the nonchalance and the margin....
Now Michael Johnson's 19.32 for the 200m beat the previous mark by
~0.5s, and looked likely to stick around for a long time, but Bolt beat that.

He is so famous for Beijing, that folk seem to forget that the next year
(World championships Stuttgart?) he bettered both records.

People are wondering whether or not he is on the right track for the 2012
olympics. IMO he has nothing left to prove.
He's already in the Carl Lewis, Ed Moses and Sergei Bubka (and that
girl polevaulter) class. (I could add a string of others to that list of course).

David

It's not because Bolt moves his legs faster than the other runners -- he doesn't! (I don't know if this applies to Dibaba.)

http://www.thepostgame.com/features/...ence-sprinting

[science_man_88]

Originally Posted by cheesehead

It's not because Bolt moves his legs faster than the other runners -- he doesn't! (I don't know if this applies to Dibaba.)

http://www.thepostgame.com/features/...ence-sprinting

I can make sense of some of this after reading it a few times:

1)F=m*a F is as large as a major sprinter.

2) W=F*D D = length of stride; so W is larger

3) P=W/t since W is larger and t is at least near the same P is larger.

[davieddy]

Originally Posted by cheesehead

It's not because Bolt moves his legs faster than the other runners -- he doesn't! (I don't know if this applies to Dibaba.)

http://www.thepostgame.com/features/...ence-sprinting

Speed equals stride-length times frequency.
Bolt has a long stride: more time to put one foot in front of another.

Tironesh Dibaba is knee-high to a grasshopper: I think it
is her stride-frequency which brings tears to my eyes!

David

[cheesehead]

Originally Posted by davieddy

Speed equals stride-length times frequency.
Bolt has a long stride:

... both because he has long legs and because he pushes off the ground with more force and more quickly.

Tironesh Dibaba is knee-high to a grasshopper: I think it
is her stride-frequency which brings tears to my eyes!

... or maybe she increases the amount of force with which she pushes off the ground so as to get a longer stride on that last lap? Has anyone actually measured her stride-frequency and whether it changes on the last lap?

[davieddy]

Originally Posted by cheesehead

... both because he has long legs and because he pushes off the ground with more force and more quickly.

... or maybe she increases the amount of force with which she pushes off the ground so as to get a longer stride on that last lap? Has anyone actually measured her stride-frequency and whether it changes on the last lap?

Why does anyone have to do any work at all to obey
Newton's 1st Law? (Air resistance is part of it).

Making the arbitrary (but not unreasonable) assumption that
Dibaba's and Bolt's stride (distance between footprints) is proportional
to the length of their legs, I estimate that the average speed of their
feet relative to their C of M is equal.

OK Bolt is a tadge faster, but he hasn't warmed up over 9600 m.
Might have had a few chicken nuggets tho

David

[Christenson]

Actually, sounds like someone has tuned his shoes......in the 1950s it was known that some tracks were faster than others, but you can tune the springiness of the shoes the same way....and maybe also took a look at his aerodynamics.

[davieddy]

Originally Posted by Christenson

Actually, sounds like someone has tuned his shoes......in the 1950s it was known that some tracks were faster than others, but you can tune the springiness of the shoes the same way....and maybe also took a look at his aerodynamics.

It would be interesting to see how fast able-bodied runners could
run with those blades that South African amputee uses for 400m.

If I walked up to the high jump on 8 foot stilts, then hopped over
the bar, do you think I'd be disqualified?
That's another girl I love to watch: heptathlete Jessica Ennis:
UK record high jump and her C of M is about 6 inches from the ground
Hurdles like Colin Jackson to boot.

David

[Flatlander]

Originally Posted by davieddy

It would be interesting to see how fast able-bodied runners could
run with those blades that South African amputee uses for 400m.
...

David

Wouldn't you need to chop their legs off below the knees? Kinda defeats the object. (No pun intended!)

What made Jonathan Edwards so good at 3-jump?

[davieddy]

Originally Posted by Flatlander

What made Jonathan Edwards so good at 3-jump?

Either drugs or God (or a good education?)

I witnessed that achievement (Stockholm?) in real time
(namely not "action replay" as we used to call it) in a hostelry
in Leighton Buzzard back whenever:
I was having lunch (including solids) and there was a telly (no sound
and nobody watching as per usual) with some athletics on. I casually
glanced at it and was struck by some visual indication that someone
had hop/skip/jumped more than 18m.
This grabbed my (albeit no one else's) attention.
"Beamonesque" crossed my mind.
I duly watched his next jump - even longer!

That brings me to watching Carl Lewis and Mike(?) Powell's beating of
Beamon's freak 1968 leap in the long jump. Carl did it first,
but that lasted only a few minutes before Powell beat it.

Are/were you Sportif?

David

[Flatlander]

spor·tive (spôrtv, spr-)
adj.
1. Playful; frolicsome.
2. Relating to or interested in sports.
3. Archaic Amorous or wanton.

Cheeky. I'll chose the second one.

I held the Surrey, Junior, Featherweight, Powerlifting-total record! (So that's why you thought you had seen me somewhere before.)
Then went back to running. Did a few 10km etc. road races, coming top 10 or 20 in some. Could have done with some decent nutrition and not returning home to a house full of smoke.
Dodgy health now.

Always enjoyed watching world-class athletics and was watching the Lewis/Powell battle on Youtube just last night. I didn't realise Beamon's record had been beaten until some time afterwards. And 8.95m has now stood for about 20 years. Tempus fugit - the only Latin I know.
My reaction to Bolt's 9.58 was similar to Michael Johnson's.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-mTGbTCD_Zk