Usain Bolt

[bjornolf]

At 50 meters Bolt was ahead of the World Record for the 50 meter dash (a race commonly run indoors). It is very very likely that the reason you see football players running 4.3 second 40 yard dashes is because they are not being properly timed.

Which may be why they say he might run a 3.1 second 40. If it's not accurately timed, he should still come out as way faster than anybody else.

[blazindw]

Also, 40 yd dashes are usually hand-timed, not electronic (not sure if it's done electronically at the combine, but I know each team hand times it anyway). The general rule in track is if your race is hand-timed, add .24 to it to get the electronic time. Thus, a lot of "4.3s" would be 4.5s electronically. The fact that Bolt ran what would calculate to be a 4.34 electronic time means that handtimed, we're looking at 4.1 for his 40.

[blazindw]

Just realized the 200m final was now. I just missed it, but the news is: Usain Bolt. 19.19 seconds. New WR (beat his old record by, you guessed it, .11)

[YourLandlord]

Just realized the 200m final was now. I just missed it, but the news is: Usain Bolt. 19.19 seconds. New WR (beat his old record by, you guessed it, .11)

BUT WHAT WAS HIS 40 TIME????????

wow: Alonso Edward of Panama was second, a distant 0.62 seconds behind Bolt.

[blazindw]

but what was his 40 time????????

Wow: Alonso edward of panama was second, a distant 0.62 seconds behind bolt.

a 3.509! Lol

[Tom B.]

wow: Alonso Edward of Panama was second, a distant 0.62 seconds behind Bolt.

To put that gap into a bit of perspective...

In terms of world record progression, the gap between Bolt and the #2 finisher is almost 30 years. That is, the last date on which the second-place finisher's time (19.81) would have been a world record was September 12, 1979, the date on which Pietro Mennea of Italy lowered the then-existing world record from 19.83 to 19.72.

[DevilAlumna]

Did anyone catch the medal ceremony for Bolt? The whole stadium sang "Happy Birthday" to him after the Jamaican National anthem was played.

[YmoBeThere]

I used to think Michael Johnson was fast...

[InSpades]

http://sports.yahoo.com/fantasy/blog...fantasy,184570

Speculation that Bolt would run a 3.73 40 yard dash at a combine. I think that is stretching it just a bit. To think that he would be basically .6 seconds faster than the fastest guys at the combine. .6 seconds in a 40 yard dash is ridiculous. Spread that out to a 100 meter dash and he'd beat them by 1.5 seconds? There's a bunch of NFL wide receivers who can run mid-10s in the 100m dash. If I had to guess I'd say he'd run around 4 flat.

[JasonEvans]

Bolt wants to try a new event... the long jump.

--Jason "I sure would not bet against him" Evans

[jma4life]

Regarding the combine times,

combine times start the clock upon first movement whereas in track, the clock starts with the gun. Bolt's reaction time was according to the splits I saw, .146 seconds. So subtracting that from whatever his 40 time was would give you his "combine style" 40.

[Welcome2DaSlopes]

Yea idk how good he would be in the long jump. I wish him the best though.

[InSpades]

Regarding the combine times,

combine times start the clock upon first movement whereas in track, the clock starts with the gun. Bolt's reaction time was according to the splits I saw, .146 seconds. So subtracting that from whatever his 40 time was would give you his "combine style" 40.

That's not the only variable to take into account. The combine times are also timed by hand (correct me if I am wrong here). So you have to take into account the reaction time of the person timing him. This very likely ends up leading towards an even lower time. It is a lot harder to anticipate when a person is going to start a 40 yard dash than when they are going to finish one.

[jma4life]

Unless it's changed the last year, you're right. The start is hand timed. The finish is electric timing. I think the NFL prefers to see low times and that's why they haven't gone fully to electric timing.

I know that with vertical jumping, they switched to the NBA style (measure your reach with one hand, not two, which thus increases your reach, but lowers your vertical as vertical is the difference between maximum touch and reach) and had lower numbers and thus switched back to the traditional football style the following year.

[Welcome2DaSlopes]

always the numbers

[boxofmess2244]

He is just an amazing runner... even when he isn't running his hardest he still beats everyone

[Welcome2DaSlopes]

That sure does tell you somthing