FASTER

[FIGHT ON]

Bolt

At the world championships in Berlin, he won the world 100m gold medal last Sunday in 9.58 seconds, knocking 0.11sec – a whopping margin – from the 9.69sec record he set in China.

Then on Thursday evening he followed that by winning the 200m gold in 19.19sec, again knocking 0.11sec from the 19.30sec record he set in China. "I can definitely say I didn't expect that," he said immediately afterwards. "I was tired but thought, 'What the heck, let's try'."

[zippetydude]

FO, I know you're a purist. So, you think he's clean?

z

[FIGHT ON]

FO, I know you're a purist. So, you think he's clean?

z

I don't know.

[FIGHT ON]

It's time to declare Usain Bolt the planet's most remarkable athlete. On Thursday Bolt smashed his own world record (by 0.11 seconds) by finishing the 200 meters in 19.19 seconds, four days after breaking his 100 mark. SI senior writer Tim Layden, who has covered Bolt since he was a teenager, offered a breakdown of what makes Jamaican so great. "There are two components: one is stride frequency (how fast you can put one foot in front of the other), and the other is stride length," he said. "You can find a lot of guys who have a long stride but don't have a quick stride frequency. Bolt has the longest stride of any sprinter in history and he turns it over like someone six to eight inches shorter than he is. He has a freaky combination of skills; it's like if you had Shaq and Chris Paul in one person-- you're not supposed to be able to do that in the same body."
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[FIGHT ON]

FO, I know you're a purist. So, you think he's clean?

z

SI.com: So the obvious question that comes to everyone's mind is -- is he clean?

TL: I won't unequivocally say anyone's clean because I don't know what they do in their bathroom or in the locker room. I hope he's clean -- he was fast at a young age, he has different dimensions than any sprinter we've seen; he has a bigger height and stride line than any runner, and I hope, for the state of the sport, that he is clean.

[Zé]

man I don't even know what PED's would really make huge benefits for sprinters. of course steroids / hgh could aid in recovery and muscle growth, but I don't know if those are necessarily high on the list of what improves performance in a sprint.

bigger muscles do not mean one will contract faster and move joints faster. there is some benefit to making arms swing well and with some mass...

sprinters probably want a very high % fast twitch muscle fibers, i wonder if there are drugs that will enhance that percentage...

[FIGHT ON]

i wonder if there are drugs that will enhance that percentage...

don't do it dude! you're still so young!

[AlanK]

It seems clear that drugs of various kinds enhance athletic performance, which is why so many athletes get caught taking them. And they are the tip of the iceberg. At the very least, one can say that athletes and coaches believe that drugs enhance performance. Within the past month, 5 members of the Jamacian national track and field team failed drug tests. This in no way implicates Usain Bolt. It merely underscores the fact that drug use is widespread and that anyone in the spotlight is not terribly far removed from people who are using drugs and/or have been caught. Personally, I am in awe of what Bolt has done and am happy to extend to him a presumption of innocence until I have a reason to believe otherwise.

[zippetydude]

You're kind, Alan. I'm afraid I lean the other way. All the current records in the whole field of athletics are somewhat suspect in my mind.

Barry Bonds would never do steroids...he just miraculously developed from a skinny, highly talented athlete into a huge, powerful highly talented athlete. And he's not the only baseball player holding records who is, at the least, highly suspect when it comes to PED use.

Lance Armstrong, who I think has an incredible story of success, still refuses to say he has never done PED's. He draws the line at saying he has never failed a drug test. No, that doesn't prove him guilty. But it gives me a bad feeling.

This list goes on, and on, and on. The question becomes, "Who is clean?" rather than the other way around. This spoils all the records (for me) because I have no idea how to compare the clean athletes of old (before PED's existed) to current athletes who may or may not be clean.

Touching on what Ze mentioned, it's not even clear which sports, if any, would not be impacted by such use. I mean, I think Tiger is clean, but I guess I could be wrong there. (I really doubt it - his character seems to be of just as high a quality as his golf.) But which sports are immune from this?

Anyway, not to hijack the thread. Like you said, it's most fair to assume Usain is innocent and wish him well. I hope no asterisk is ever attached to his record - that way we all win.

z

[phydeux]

Discounting over-the-counter meds, I've always found the dichotomy of using performance enhancing drugs between the climbing/hiking community and other sports a little odd. For example, here's a recent link of the WPSMB concerning precription drug Diamox (acetazolamide):

http://www.whitneyportalstore.com/forum ... #Post65863

Whether a pro climber or a 'weekend warrior' (most who post on the WPSMB are in the latter category) it seems odd how its not condemned as it is in other sports, and that anyone who uses it can say they've been to the summit of Mt. Whitney without and recriminations.

Are Bolt, Armstorng, Bonds, MacGuire, pro (or college) football players, runners, swimmers, etc guilty of using PEDs? Who knows for sure, but it seems anyone who dominates a sport these days will immediately be under a cloud of suspicion that won't end.