The Olympics

[chemiclord]

4 years ago Lyles was running in the mid 9.9s. It's certainly harder to improve when you are already running 9.77, as Thompson is. But assuming he's maxed out at 23 seems questionable. There are more ways to improve than just the start. (saw your edit after this post)

The real question is probably if any of the real youngsters have truly high upside, - Tebogo (Botswana - 21), Asinga (Suriname - 19) and US teen Christian Miller (18) have the top 3 under 20 times ever. Youth speed doesn't always translate to world records or gold medals though. But there's a good bench of young guys for sure.

Well, I usually start to think a guy has hit his ceiling when he starts leveling off and there really isn't an obvious technical flaw that's slowing them down, and at that point a racer just winds up nibbling at the margins. Where I muffed up was that I thought Thompson had hit that point, when he really hadn't. That's my bad.

[chemiclord]

I heard 5th place would have won gold. Maybe it was 4th.

Fourth would have won silver, if I'm looking at my times correctly.

[DanO]

Maybe it was 3rd then. To lazy to look it up. lol

[Mainevent]

I had to go look back and Main is correct. Bolt let up at the 2008 Olympics in setting the world record at 9.69 when he famously looked to the side as he reached the finish. He also showboated when he set the 200m at 19.19 in 2009 World Championships, but he didn't when he set the 9.58 100m record.

If any of those runners were to go sub 9.7 in the future, it's probably Lyle's. He's the fastest runner with a shitty start, if he lucked into a good start he could shave a tenth.

Eh, have to disagree with you again. He ran through on the 19.19 as well. Even Ato Bolden says he hadn't seen him run that hard in a long time on the commentary.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ECL9vfu-A3E

The question is, if he had somebody that was pushing him, was there a little bit more he could have eeeked out, but we'll never know. When he ran 9.58 he got a great start, was basically even with everybody out of the blocks. Probably couldn't have asked for much more. The fact that he only really approached that number once at 9.63 ever again suggests he did everything right to hit that crazy 9.58 time. Sort of the same with the 200, other than the world record, never ran another sub 19.3 race in his career.

[chemiclord]

I think it's fair to look Bolt and compare him to Phelps. Phelps had plenty of people "pushing" him in his various races, and I don't think it really brought anything out of him that he wasn't already capable of.

At some point, when you are just that good, your only competition is yourself to begin with, and someone nipping at your heels isn't going to particularly drive you any harder.

[Mainevent]

I do think those 2 record races were him at his upper limits. I was more referring to the fact that he put the records out there so far and away from what anybody else was doing, he was in a position to be more in maintain mode and keep winning titles. If there was somebody that was running mid 9.6s or 19.2s consistently he may have had to reach for the highest highs more consistently. Don't know if he would have been able to do any better, but he didn't have to.

We'll get a chance to see what happens when a great gets pushed later this week when SML and Femke Bol go at it. Could be the sequel to the men's 400M hurdles from Tokyo.

[Forsh]

I still kind of think swimming medals should have a bit of an asterisk to them. They could make up 3 or 4 more styles and a guy like Phelps could have 50 medals. Different distances that's cool ... but freestyle is the big one to me

[chemiclord]

I still kind of think swimming medals should have a bit of an asterisk to them. They could make up 3 or 4 more styles and a guy like Phelps could have 50 medals. Different distances that's cool ... but freestyle is the big one to me

I'm kinda in agreement, in the sense that I don't think every stroke should have its own medals. Now, I do think that medley events are fine, and medley relays.

I don't think it would have changed Phelps dominance too much though. I suspect if he had dedicated himself to the freestyle events, he'd have still been clowning people; as it was he was one of the world's best freestyle swimmers while putting in about half the time of his peers (several of his gold medals came in the 200m free, and he was a frequent participant in the 4x100 relay teams).

[Mainevent]

The men’s pole vault is like a professional going against a bunch of high schoolers. It’s sort of hilarious.

[froot loops]

That girl discus thrower did it again. She certainly doesn't look like she should be able to throw it that far

[chemiclord]

The men’s pole vault is like a professional going against a bunch of high schoolers. It’s sort of hilarious.

Well, yeah. We've already seen just how much man one of them is!

[DanO]

The men’s pole vault is like a professional going against a bunch of high schoolers. It’s sort of hilarious.

That guy is good.

[froot loops]

That 1500 race was amazeballs. The shit talking Norwegian off the podium, USA Gold and Bronze.

[Mainevent]

That was great, and Hobbs Kessler from Ann Arbor 5th.

[DanO]

That 1500 race was amazeballs. The shit talking Norwegian off the podium, USA Gold and Bronze.

Loved it. Then Gabby Thomas wins the 200m. She's AWESOME!