mastermulti

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Joined July 2022

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you didn’t point out the excellence of an extreme sprinting out-lier, Su Bingtian who ran that 9.83 OG semi final. Imagine a nation of people “full of table tennis players” producing that guy.
I have long since believed that the way to describe sprinting prowess is all about having the most tools in your toolbox to enable fast sprinting. And it seems that sprinters of west African sub Saharan extraction are more likely to have more of those tools.
It is true that Christophe Lemaitre could generate as much top speed as virtually any 100m metre man who’s ever lived (certainly in his peak from 2010 to 2012). But he could not produce the power off the blocks to match the top starters nor get his acceleration phase top level. He got all his results with pure speed. He had great tools- but not all of them. Ramil Guliyev (Azerbaijan/Turkey) likewise has/had the determination to win a world championships 200m, great speed endurance and closing pace – but, again, not the start or acceleration stage to be an elite 100 man.
Both these guys incidentally were first and second way back in 2009 in the Euro junior championships with Lemaitre running a Euro jr. record of 10.04 at 19 and Guliyev not far back. They were always “stand-out” fast naturally, genetically (yet who’d ever heard of a top class coach OR sprinter from Azerbaijan?). They had some of the sharpest tools in anyone’s shed – but not ALL of the sharpest tools.
Then we could validly venture into desire, cultural expectation (blacks now expect to win the sprints), and the burning ambition to succeed and, often, to extricate themselves from poverty. Safe to say most white athletes who sprint do so until they qualify in their chosen field of employment. Whether they succeed as a world class athlete doesn’t matter much when they have other choices (Rohan Browning is a near qualified lawyer who will move on to practicing when he’s had enough of working to be the best sprinter he feels he can be.

How much does race have to do with athletic performance?

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Athletics

2022