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 x7x_x7x
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Registered: 05/05/07
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 Olympic sprints are the closest thing to flying Read more here: http://www.kansascity.com/2012/08/0 
#16645993 - 08/05/12 09:37 AM (10 months, 8 days ago) |
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http://www.kansascity.com/2012/08/04/3743536/speed-thrills-sprinters.html
BY SAM MELLINGER
The Kansas City Star
LONDON -- Maurice Greene says it feels like an addict’s description of a cocaine high and this is only part of why we all watch. The most exciting nine-point-something seconds in sports needs no explanation. No hype. No string-music-in-the-background stories to turn the athletes into heroes because there is no translation that can add to the only thing left in sports that chokeholds your attention from start to finish.
Seven billion people on this planet, and every one of them old enough has run. Every one of them old enough has raced. Nothing else in sports is as universal as the 100-meter race at the Olympics.
Tonight, about 80,000 people will pack a stadium and hundreds of millions more will watch on television to be as close as they can to the fastest humans alive in the fastest race our nature can produce. World’s Fastest Man. This is the event that all of us can understand, no matter where we live, no matter if we grew up in a hut or a mansion.
Everyone understands speed. We obsess over speed. Cars are built to go way faster than the law allows. All the best cartoon characters go fast. We hurt ourselves because of speed. Speed kills? Sure, but speed also thrills.
Seven billion people on this planet and every one of them old enough has run. Only five have run faster than Kansas City’s Greene. Don’t you want to know what that feels like? You know, without doing cocaine?
“There’s a feeling you can’t get to, ever,” Greene is saying, 13 years after his fastest race. “Especially when you win.”
The world’s fastest men leave each foot on the track for about 0.08 seconds. That means they’re on the ground for less than four seconds of each race. That means the rest of the time they’re flying.
People see the legs going blurry and the arms pumping and human beings reaching 27 or 28 miles per hour and the whole thing looks magical. But there is a sweet science behind the fastest way to a gold medal, and that sweet science is force.
Usain Bolt, for instance, doesn’t move his legs all that fast. There are average sprinters — college kids, even high school — who move their legs just as fast. Bolt’s legs punish the track with impossible force, propelling his body forward faster and further than any human in history so far. The legs are springs. The more bounce, the faster you move.
Greene covered 100 meters in 451/2 steps. Most of today’s best sprinters use 44. Bolt only needs 40, one reason the sprinting trend is away from compact runners like Greene and toward taller ones with more power like Bolt. Once guys get behind Bolt, they don’t come back. It’s why he looks around him with 10 meters left, to see if he can slow down.
You’ll hear people say the 100 meters is an all-out sprint. They call it the dash, after all, like it’s nine-point-something seconds of max effort. But that’s actually not true. That’s actually impossible.
“It’s physiology,” says Mike Young, a biomechanist and professional sports trainer. “It’s inevitable that you’ll decelerate.”
Even at this relatively short distance, Young says the human body cannot maintain top speed from start to finish. Muscles and the nervous system typically start fatiguing around six or seven seconds, so the world’s best sprinters are going the last three or four seconds in a (slightly) diminished state.
Peak speeds usually come around 50 or 60 meters. It used to be that the world’s elite could only hold top speed for about 10 meters. Now, it’s 30. The effect is enormous, because not only are they peaking longer but they’re decelerating for a shorter distance.
All of these things and a million more technical points can be taught over time, but as Young says, for the most part you are born an elite sprinter or you’re born like the rest of us. Most of that is in body type and natural muscle.
The fun part is in what the kids call swag.
Usain Bolt adopted a cheetah and named it “Lightning Bolt.” Maurice Greene drove around Sydney in a Ferrari with an Australian model. Justin Gatlin pounds his chest, and tends to high jump after the finish line.
You should watch these guys before races, too. They dance. They jump. They stalk. There might not be another event in the world where the competitors can’t touch each other but put out more intimidation vibe. They say sprinters with aggressive personalities tend to do well; ones without it don’t.
Sprinters must believe in this. Nine-point-something seconds. There’s no time for doubt.
“I was more comfortable in a packed stadium in the finals of 100 meters than I am laying at home in my bed,” Greene says. “Yeah. That’s just where I feel like I belong. That’s where I’m the president. I run everything and I’m in control of everything and it’s my destiny. It’s where I belong.”
This is why you see long stares, no smiles, just the output of testosterone between the world’s fastest men. Greene says he was “looking dead into their souls” to see which ones came ready to race. You’d be surprised how much these guys can sense when they’re running. They want to know who to look out for.
This is also an undeniable point of attraction, of what makes this the most exhilarating 10 seconds in sports. Maybe you love the showmanship, maybe you think it goes too far sometimes. Either way, it’s part of the show. Either way, it’s part of what makes the show.
Lives change in nine-point-something seconds. Men either live the rest of their days famous or something not nearly as appealing. The difference is often literally less than the blink of an eye. These are forever races, done on the edge of a razor. Swag isn’t just an option.
It’s a necessity.
Michael Johnson once told the story of a go-kart he had as a boy. He loved that go-kart, especially when he took it down the road with the big hill. He said it felt like flying.
He said it was the only thing he could think of that compares to running faster than every other human being on the planet.
Others say it’s like sticking your head out the car window, or leaning forward at the front of a speedboat. Maybe the rest of us have to go skydiving to know what this really feels like.
They say the last 50 meters are the best. That’s when they’re going the fastest, of course, but it’s more than that. This is when they start to hear the crowd, when they start to see the flashes. Like they came out of a tunnel. It looks like a stadium full of paparazzi from down there.
This is when it really does feel like magic. This is when man gets as close as possible to his greatest and simplest physical accomplishment.
Human beings can’t fly, not really. But this is as close as we can come. And who doesn’t want to watch that?
To reach Sam Mellinger, call 816-234-4365, send e-mail to smellinger@kcstar.com or follow twitter.com/mellinger.
Posted on Sat, Aug. 04, 2012 11:13 PM
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DebuteMachine
Psychonaut
Registered: 09/29/06
Posts: 3,176
Last seen: 22 hours, 46 minutes
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 Re: Olympic sprints are the closest thing to flying Read more here: http://www.kansascity.com/2012/08/0 [Re: x7x_x7x]
#16646911 - 08/05/12 01:54 PM (10 months, 8 days ago) |
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ehhhhh.
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shivas.wisdom
בּ וואלה
Registered: 02/20/09
Posts: 5,935
Loc: Turtle Island
Last seen: 7 days, 22 hours
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Re: Olympic sprints are the closest thing to flying Read more here: http://www.kansascity.com/2012/08/0 [Re: DebuteMachine]
#16647261 - 08/05/12 03:16 PM (10 months, 7 days ago) |
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*actual closest thing to flying
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Phantom
Registered: 06/27/11
Posts: 29
Loc: one with the universe 
Last seen: 8 months, 6 days
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Re: Olympic sprints are the closest thing to flying Read more here: http://www.kansascity.com/2012/08/0 [Re: shivas.wisdom]
#16650260 - 08/05/12 11:44 PM (10 months, 7 days ago) |
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you beat me too shiva, wingsuit proximity flying is flying... running is running
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