Sprinting in the next 50 years?!

It remains to be seen if Bolt can break his own record which now stands at 9.58. He may have no more than another couple of years to break this before decline sets in. But what about life after Bolt in sprinting? In many ways Bolt has re-defined the boundries of what humans are capable of in sprinting. Not only with his times posted, but also with his size and body shape which was previously thought all wrong for sprinters. Research in 2008 suggested the maximum a human could acheive in the 100m was 9.44. Since Bolts record further research has suggested it may be as low as 9.2. Others believe sub 9 seconds is possible. So in the next 50 years what kind of times do you think we could see? How far can the boundries be pushed?

To be honest, I think Bolt's 100m record will be one of those records that holds up for a long time (20 years plus). The guy is a complete freak because of the combination of stride length and cadence, and the result is that rather than knocking a couple of hundredths off the existing record he knocked a couple of tenths off. I think the most impressive bit of running I've ever seen was Tyson Gay's 9.69 in coming second in Berlin - how can a guy that isn't this freak of nature manage to get so (relatively) close? Unfortunately, I think in trying to keep up, Gay has broken himself and will never match that time again.

I still think Bolt can lower the 200m mark to very close to the 19s barrier, and put that record out of reach of the rest of the world for a decade as well.

As for where the limits are, I would be surprised if I live to see someone go below 9.45s (I'm 40, so hope I'm roughly at half time...).

The only man who break that record is Bolt himself, never seen anything like it, maybe in years to come it will be done but nobody in sight of it anytime soon. Definitely dont think we will see sub 9 seconds at least in our lifetime.

Traditionally people of Bolts stature have been considered to tall to do well in the sprints but Bolt has re-defined this. Maybe in the future taller sprinters will be examined more closely. I think Bolt is capable of going faster than 9.58 but I dont know if he will.

we evolve so untill we start evolving less strong and less tall then we will keep breaking these records.

bolt has taken the sport further though- taller people will be considered after he has proved that you can be as coordinated as a smaller athlete, yet at the same time allow the longer stride to elevate you.

Remeber that tall athletes are not usually selected as runners- so i would guess that in 20 or so yeqars all the 100metre runners will be 6.2 plus

I think bolt could break 9.5- but that could stand for 20 years

What were the scientists saying 50 years ago?

Did they believe the record could be 9.5?

I think the question is how much further can the human body evolve physically.

Personally I think because of the diet of modern day man probably not much further naturally, but with science cones genetic evolution in food, so it is an open question in my view.

Just to add, I have know expertise on the subject.

The first thing that needs to be done is for the IAAF to get rid of the 'one false start and you're out' rule. Then maybe Bolt and co will have more confidence in going for a quick start.

In field events you are allowed two fails so why do track athletes get none?

Sport should be about the sport and not about the adverts/ sponsorship.

i think it can keep evolving- no reason why we cant get stronger and stronger- yes we will slow down the increase, and we may become abit bionic in the future(half robot-and have engineered organs)

the olympics might become more about how good technolgy is for making human body parts

biltongbek wrote:What were the scientists saying 50 years ago?

Did they believe the record could be 9.5?

I think the question is how much further can the human body evolve physically.

Personally I think because of the diet of modern day man probably not much further naturally, but with science cones genetic evolution in food, so it is an open question in my view.

Just to add, I have know expertise on the subject.

Do you think this is true in all sports? In boxing this period is considered the worst ever for heavyweights. Guys like Ali, Frazier, Tyson, Marciano would all wipe the floor with the current champion.

sportsville wrote:The first thing that needs to be done is for the IAAF to get rid of the 'one false start and you're out' rule. Then maybe Bolt and co will have more confidence in going for a quick start.

In field events you are allowed two fails so why do track athletes get none?

Sport should be about the sport and not about the adverts/ sponsorship.

Great point!

"Do you think this is true in all sports? In boxing this period is
considered the worst ever for heavyweights. Guys like Ali, Frazier,
Tyson, Marciano would all wipe the floor with the current champion."

he is talking about thne evolotion of us humans- not about individual sports. I am not sure about boxing however the mroe the merrier when it comes to producing top athletes in there repsective sports and clearly the furthar time goes on the better understanding for training regimes and diet.

Boxing may well have dipped in participation levels. that may be a factor when considering how good this era is. Because we are still getting bigger and stronger evolotionary wise

I remember when Mike Parry on Talksport suggested that 100m would eventually be done in under one second.

Looking forward to that.

Gordy wrote:

sportsville wrote:The first thing that needs to be done is for the IAAF to get rid of the 'one false start and you're out' rule. Then maybe Bolt and co will have more confidence in going for a quick start.

In field events you are allowed two fails so why do track athletes get none?

Sport should be about the sport and not about the adverts/ sponsorship.

Great point!

Disagree entirely & don't see the similarity between field event fails & sprinting. Giving leeway with false starts just means endless restarts as runners try to jump the gun (followed by the obligatory storming up & down the track with his shirt off as the aggrieved, disqualified runner throws a tantrum & the officials flap helplessly about). As it stands there's no advantage to be gained repeatedly guessing when the gun will go off & this applies to every runner, reaction times are a part of the race.

Gordy wrote:

biltongbek wrote:What were the scientists saying 50 years ago?

Did they believe the record could be 9.5?

I think the question is how much further can the human body evolve physically.

Personally I think because of the diet of modern day man probably not much further naturally, but with science cones genetic evolution in food, so it is an open question in my view.

Just to add, I have know expertise on the subject.

Do you think this is true in all sports? In boxing this period is considered the worst ever for heavyweights. Guys like Ali, Frazier, Tyson, Marciano would all wipe the floor with the current champion.

Gordy there is a big difference between physical development and skills for a sport.

Ali could probably out jab the lightweights of today.

On another thread we've been discussing the long jump, with the thread digressing to all the men's jumping events. There has not been a new world record set in any of the men's long jump, high jump, triple jump or pole vault since 1995, and current performances aren't really that close to threatening the existing marks.

I appreciate that each of those disciplines are more technical than pure sprinting, but the longevity of the records suggests that the marginal gains in 'evolution', nutrition, sports science etc are not having a big effect on results. My suspicion is (with the exclusion of the possibilities created by new doping products, as EPO did for endurance sports) that the gains available from altering training, nutrition etc are going to become increasingly trivial and world recod marks are going to be ever harder to beat.

Every so often a freakishly good athlete will appear and do something incredible to reduce a record, but these records will then tend to last a generation (similar to Seb Coe's extraordinarily long-standing 800m wr). My belief is that Bolt is just one of these freaks.

But didn't sebastian Coe cheat?

You are supposed to jog in the 800, not run.

It's a risk to say that a certain world record will never be beaten, as it's what they've said throughout history. I'm sure at some point they'd have said that nobody will ever be able to run 100m in less than 10 seconds etc. Then it will be 9.8, 9.7 and then it will just keep coming down. At some point it will stop, but whether it is now, or will just keep getting broken we can't know.

I'd maybe go as far as to say that the person who can beat Bolt's 100m record, aside from Bolt himself, of course, may well not have even been born yet. I also think that, with a proper off-season training regime (which he hasn't had in the past couple of years) he can lower that record, perhaps to something like 9.53.

However, it's inevitable that somebody will eventually come along and run the 100m quicker than that. Comparisons between trakc & field and other sports such as boxing are a little pointless, and certainly not valid; in boxing, there is not a single aspectwhich defines a great performance, not one single aim for which the athletes shoot to reach. In the sprints, there is - to run as quickly possible in as little time as possible. Therefore, there will always be a torrent of effort, research, studies etc in to what can be done to achieve faster sprint times, and that's not to mention the almost indefinable ability human beings have to reach a target once they know what it is, as well as their ability to push boundaries once a certain one, previously thought unattainable, has been hit (Roger Bannister's four-minute mile, for example).


My best guess is that whatever 100m record Belt ends his career with, be it the current 9.58 0r a time even lower, will stand for a couple of decades, unheard of in the days of electronic timing. However, once someone does get past it, I think the progression of the record will revert back to normality; no more tenths being taken off, but rather the familiar old pattern of one hundreth being shaved off, then two years alter another hundreth going, three years after that a couple of hundreths get taken off, and on we go.

I think in half a century we'll be seeing sun 9.5 runs. Sub 9.4, however, might not be seen in my lifetime.

mystiroakey wrote:"Do you think this is true in all sports? In boxing this period is
considered the worst ever for heavyweights. Guys like Ali, Frazier,
Tyson, Marciano would all wipe the floor with the current champion."

he is talking about thne evolotion of us humans- not about individual sports. I am not sure about boxing however the mroe the merrier when it comes to producing top athletes in there repsective sports and clearly the furthar time goes on the better understanding for training regimes and diet.

Boxing may well have dipped in participation levels. that may be a factor when considering how good this era is. Because we are still getting bigger and stronger evolotionary wise

I think this is a misconception. The heavyweights around now are enormous some of them. But they have no skill or technique. They rely on just being big. The division is full of these oversized Russian boxers. Even Audley Harrison is a big guy. There is alot of hype in boxing and the media try to fool the public into thinking these boxers are great but they are actually terrible. If you ask any boxing expert they will tell you that this is without doubt the worst era of heavyweights. The boxers are big, but they lack skill and technique.

What is the misconception. Fact is we just dont have the same participation levels(or do we?).

I dont think any of todays boxers are great(they could be but i doubt it. but I think its because they are going into american football, ultimate fighting, rugby- etc etc.

Just read that Bolt himself thinks he can go faster in the future. Didnt say what time he would set though! Is sub 9.5 possible for Boltor has he passed his peak now for 100m sprinting?

very possible- willl he- i doubt it

I think for the next Olympics Bolt should aim for the 400m world record. Having the 100m, 200m and 400m world records would be unprecedented and would be a feat Im not sure would be replicsted for many decades. The only problem is Bolts laziness, he doesnt like the 400m because he says its much harder work.

i used to sprint- 400 meters is to hardcore for a sprinter- 200 is hard enough

We can never rule out Bolt though he seems to be a freak of nature.

i think one day when we are evolved to a point were we can sprint for 400 metres- sprinters will get involved- but at the mo is it possible?

Who knows? It takes a special athlete to redefine these kind of boundries. Maybe Bolt will be the first? This is what makes him so exciting.

Certain physiological types do have a certain predisposition towards particular events, but in the world of modern sport, a number of other factors are also relevant. What creates an exceptional athlete such as Usain Bolt is a sort of "perfect storm" effect, where all these factors come (or are brought) together in one individual.

To produce the greatest athletes, the approximate ratio of genes to environment is about 55 : 45. Whilst the genetic profile of the individual is of overwhelming importance at the very highest level, the environmental factors cannot be discarded. Take for example the German identical twins one of whom became an endurance athlete and the other a power sportsman (sorry, can't remember their names, now).

Genes alone do not guarantee anything. Whilst it is true that a person who is only 5 feet tall is unlikely to become a major NBA star, being 6 feet 9 inches tall and having the springiest achilles tendons in the world doesn't necessarily mean that person definitely would.

Unless you have tactical sense where needed and have access to good equipment, medical backup and the psychological conditions to have the winning attitude and be able to drive yourself through pain, and of course, superb technique, all the physical side will be in vain.

The combination of genes and environment is entirely relevant. You can't have one without the other, but the search for the sport stars of the future must necessarily start with the search for the right profile. In 1988 the Australian Institue of Sport set out to find young people with the correct physique for specific sports. One of those they found was Megan Still who was 14 years old and had never sat in a boat in her life. By the time of the Atlanta Games in 1996, she won gold with Kate Slatter in the women's coxless pairs.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Megan_Marcks

Since then, other countries, including Great Britain have followed Australia's example and there has been an explosion in knowledge gained about genetic influence. We now know that several genes are implicated. For example, the EPOR (erythropoietin receptor) initiates the process of red blood cell production and then switches off, but one mutation means that it carries on working, leading to an abnormal amount of red blood cells. Finnish researchers identified an entire family with this EPOR mutation, several of whom were championship endurance athletes, including the great cross-country gold medalist skier, Eero Mantyranta. This mutation was definitely performance-enhancing.... and it's perfectly natural..!!

It is likely that elite athletes of the future may well come from among such physiological "outliers", people who naturally possess extremes of normal physiology which also happen to be performance-enhancing. It's just a question of finding them.

I could go on, but I think you get the general drift here.

Usain Bolt is not a "freak" of any description. I don't have access to his medical records or any testing which may have profiled his genetic composition, but if I were a gambling girl, I'd be willing to put a few bob on him possessing certain characteristics which, when coupled with a specifically tailored training / diet / conditioning programme has produced his results quite naturally and not outside of calculable ranges.

As science advances further and more discoveries are made, it is likely that sprinters will be able to run faster. How much faster that may be is not known at this time, but as a biologist, I rule out nothing. Only the performance supported by the evidence will tell.

.

Improved diets, conditioning, training.....LOL



As long as PED's continue to improve, so will the athletes.

Am I the only one who thinks PED's are rife in all levels of all sports?

I think it is probably that top end athletes just have very good masking agents to hide drugs in the system.

just allow them. job done

Lumbering_Jack wrote:Am I the only one who thinks PED's are rife in all levels of all sports?

I think it is probably that top end athletes just have very good masking agents to hide drugs in the system.

Exactly.

Its unbelieveable how naive people are on this subject. They assume that just because an athlete passes a doping test that they're clean and always have been.

Drug testing

Jennifer1984 wrote:Certain physiological types do have a certain predisposition towards particular events, but in the world of modern sport, a number of other factors are also relevant. What creates an exceptional athlete such as Usain Bolt is a sort of "perfect storm" effect, where all these factors come (or are brought) together in one individual.

To produce the greatest athletes, the approximate ratio of genes to environment is about 55 : 45. Whilst the genetic profile of the individual is of overwhelming importance at the very highest level, the environmental factors cannot be discarded. Take for example the German identical twins one of whom became an endurance athlete and the other a power sportsman (sorry, can't remember their names, now).

Genes alone do not guarantee anything. Whilst it is true that a person who is only 5 feet tall is unlikely to become a major NBA star, being 6 feet 9 inches tall and having the springiest achilles tendons in the world doesn't necessarily mean that person definitely would.

Unless you have tactical sense where needed and have access to good equipment, medical backup and the psychological conditions to have the winning attitude and be able to drive yourself through pain, and of course, superb technique, all the physical side will be in vain.

The combination of genes and environment is entirely relevant. You can't have one without the other, but the search for the sport stars of the future must necessarily start with the search for the right profile. In 1988 the Australian Institue of Sport set out to find young people with the correct physique for specific sports. One of those they found was Megan Still who was 14 years old and had never sat in a boat in her life. By the time of the Atlanta Games in 1996, she won gold with Kate Slatter in the women's coxless pairs.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Megan_Marcks

Since then, other countries, including Great Britain have followed Australia's example and there has been an explosion in knowledge gained about genetic influence. We now know that several genes are implicated. For example, the EPOR (erythropoietin receptor) initiates the process of red blood cell production and then switches off, but one mutation means that it carries on working, leading to an abnormal amount of red blood cells. Finnish researchers identified an entire family with this EPOR mutation, several of whom were championship endurance athletes, including the great cross-country gold medalist skier, Eero Mantyranta. This mutation was definitely performance-enhancing.... and it's perfectly natural..!!

It is likely that elite athletes of the future may well come from among such physiological "outliers", people who naturally possess extremes of normal physiology which also happen to be performance-enhancing. It's just a question of finding them.

I could go on, but I think you get the general drift here.

Usain Bolt is not a "freak" of any description. I don't have access to his medical records or any testing which may have profiled his genetic composition, but if I were a gambling girl, I'd be willing to put a few bob on him possessing certain characteristics which, when coupled with a specifically tailored training / diet / conditioning programme has produced his results quite naturally and not outside of calculable ranges.

As science advances further and more discoveries are made, it is likely that sprinters will be able to run faster. How much faster that may be is not known at this time, but as a biologist, I rule out nothing. Only the performance supported by the evidence will tell.

.

Remind me never to invite you to a party.

mystiroakey wrote:just allow them. job done

Probably not a bad idea in reality. If people want to do themselves permenant internal damage that is up to them. Alcoholics do it, athletes should be allowed that choice too!!