Usain Bolt Fan Club

UPDATE 1: See video of Bolt's semifinals here.

UPDATE 2: Click here to see the official results from the 200 meter final. I won't ruin the result, in case you want to wait twelve hours to see it on NBC.

His 100 meter gold medal, and world record, generated a lot of talk. ESPN's Jim Caple sarcastically (I hope) suggested he should have done even more while showing up the rest of the field. CNBC's Darren Rovell thinks that Bolt wanted to put more money in his bank by saving his sub 9.60 time for the next Olympics, or something. Bolt himself just said he was happy to win the gold medal and dismissed talk about the world record. Tyson Gay, unable to qualify for the final, said "I was in awe," following Bolt's win. It's quickly the talk of the Olympics, preventing a post-Phelps letdown.

Earlier I suggested what would be a shocking development as these Olympics near its final days: can the 200 m record, which has stood solid since 1996, fall on Wednesday? Judging by the first few rounds of qualifying, I think it's a serious possibility. Once again, Michael Johnson's 19.32 broke a 17 year old record in Atlanta, and since then only five runners have eclipsed the earlier world record. Bolt will be competing against two of them: Walter Dix (Personal Best: 19.69 and Wallace Spearmon (PB: 19.65), both from the US. Bolt, meanwhile, is the only one who's gone below 19.70 this year, running a 19.67 on July 13.

The preliminary rounds aren't much of a contest for the top runners, and Bolt cruised into the finish line in second place, at 20.64. He just had to be in the top three to ensure he would move on to the next round, the Quarterfinals. The video of his second round race can be found here, starting at the 6:00 mark. Just like in the 100 meter final, Bolt eases up with about 10% of the race still to go-- with about 20 meters to go the unofficial clock reads 18.6 seconds. Even with the ease-up, he crushes Crawford, the runner up, 20.29 to 20.42. Interestingly, sixth-place finisher Amur Seoud from Egypt set a national record at 20.55, and didn't qualify for the semifinals.

Twenty-four hours later, Bolt, Crawford, and Spearmon all competed in the second semifinal. In the first, American Walter Dix settled for third place, behind a season-best from Zimbabwe's Brian Dzingai, and a 20.11 from Churandy Martina, which was a national record for the Netherlands Antilles and the fastest 200 meter run so far. The time wouldn't last long, when Bolt's heat took the track. Spearmon and Bolt were goofing around before the race (and continued it afterwards, when Spearmon put "bunny ears" behind Bolt's head during an interview). With a much higher level of competition, Bolt didn't look phased at all.

Running out of lane six, Bolt had made up the staggered-start on Spearmon (Lane 7) and Kim Collins (Lane 8) within the first fifty meters, and never looked back. Crawford was leading the pack as they crossed the halfway point, but Bolt's freakishly long strides ended that rather quickly. At the 50 meter mark, they were tied, and the unofficial clock read 16.4 seconds. Both men appear to ease up, and looking at the replay, "ease" is too weak an adjective to explain what Bolt is doing along the last few meters. He's jogging, with no more apparent effort than someone just doing their warmup jog before a baseball game. Still, Crawford slows down a bit more than Bolt, who crosses the line at 20.09. Spearmon overcame his terrible start--his reaction time (elapsed between gun and first movement) was 0.196, worst out of all the semifinaliss-- and crossed the line third, wagging his suspiciously blue-tinted tongue at Bolt.

At this point I think the three Americans, who all would normally have an excellent shot at Gold in the final, will be racing for a silver medal. The real question is whether Bolt can chase down Michael Johnson. Despite Johnson's initial reaction following the 100 meter final, the world record holder expressed doubt, and predicted a 19.5x for Bolt in the final (which would still be the fastest time in twelve years). Donovan Bailey, former 100 m record holder predicts "if he gets someone to push him through the corner, we could see something unbelievable. I'm thinking between 19.22 and 19.26."

There are certainly some strong turn runners in the final- Crawford and Dix are among them. By getting the fastest time, Bolt will have the best lane, #5, right in the middle of the track. In front of him will be Spearmon, Dix, Martina, and Dzingai. If he can make up the stagger on the first three before the home straightaway, that's the first sign it will be a magical event. Similarly, it was not until the final 100 meters that Michael Johnson pulled away and set the extraordinary mark. But if Bolt is well ahead, as all indications suggest, will he strive for that mythical air below 19.40? Following his semifinal, Bolt promised he would go all out in the final.

For a sport that has been devestated by one doping scandal after another, it would be a huge boost to the popularity of track and field if Bolt can break the 200 meter record, and do it "clean." Bolt himself has been tested seven times since he arrived at the games, so there can be no doubt of his dope-free running. To those who consider such training regimens to be cheating, a clean Bolt holding the first 100-200 double since Carl Lewis, and breaking two world records, would return a lot of legitimacy to the sport.

Other T&F News and Notes: The Men's Long Jump was won by Panama's Irving Jahir Aranda Saladino with a jump of 8.34 meters. I mention this because the standard for "omg that was amazing" events in Olympic track history was Bob Beamon's 8.90 meters in 1968. No one had ever cleared 28 feet in the long jump, and Beamon was the first to clear not only 28 feet, but also 29 feet (8.90 m = 29 ft, 2.5 in). Event officials were not even equipped to automatically measure a jump of such distance. Despite controversy that Mexico City's altitude aided the jump, no one equaled Beamon's level for 23 years, and still remains the second longest jump of all time and an Olympic record. Imagine the aura surrounding Michael Johnson's 200m record times 1000. If you haven't seen the jump, here's a youtube video.

Also, congratulations to Rashid Ramzi, who became the first ever gold medal winner from tiny Bahrain, an island nation in the Persian Gulf, winning the 1500 in 3:32.94. Even though the NBC retards said he was from Qatar in their graphic, he ran a great race and outpaced two Kenyans who had been leading the first three laps of the race. He may soon be joined by Roqaya Al-Gassra, who won her quarterfinal heat of the 200m earlier today and will compete in the semifinals on Wednesday. You'll recognize her; she's the one in the aerodynamic hijab.

Finally, some video of Bolt with some speedy fingers, racing himself on pumarunning.com, getting the "video game times" that the NBC announcer talked about after the 100 meter final:

chasingBOLT #6: Can YOU Beat Usain Bolt?
Uploaded by chasingBOLT

He got 9.69 on the video game, which was posted a week before the 100 m final. Cue creepy music...

The Olympics Have Finally Begun

I, like billions of men everywhere in the world, enjoyed watching Misty May-Treanor and Kerry Walsh bounce around in the sand towards gold. There is some sense of awe, watching the Chinese men's gymnastics team twirl about on the pommel horse, and watching the tension on the faces of the Chinese middle school gymnastics team as they try to take on Americans twice their age. But I haven't watched a single minute of this year's Dream Team, and I probably won't until the medal rounds. I don't intend to watch any of the Olympic baseball tournament, because with their silly rules and inferior level of competition, I'll take Bud Selig's money-grubbing World Cup of Baseball any day. To me, the Summer Olympics doesn't really begin until the very fast people with tiny shorts and weightless shoes fill the screen. To me, Track and Field is the Summer Olympics.

Yes, the story of the Olympics so far has been Michael Phelps and his eight gold medals, one for each thousand calories he ingests each day. But look at the events he starred in: 200 m free, 200 m butterfly, 100 m butterfly, a couple medleys, and a bunch of relays. Essentially, Phelps is the master of swimming very fast over a short distance using a number of different styles. Also, he has very fast teammates. So, good for him, it's never been done before and he should be championed.

To me, though, it would be like if in addition to the 100 m dash, there was the also the 100 m skip, the 100 m backwards run, and the 100 m hop-on-one-foot. If there was as much variation over the same distances in track as there is in swimming, I assure you that many track athletes would rack up the medals like Spitz and Phelps. Instead, you have a sport where each race, up until about 3000 m, is different from races shorter and longer. At 100 m, the race is about acceleration; at 200 m it's about maintaining top speed for as long as possible; at 400 m the stride phase is elongated and race strategy is necessary. At higher distances, the strategy becomes akin to that of horse-racing: runners must plan when to use their bursts of energy, and when to draft behind another runner. Thus it is the ability to see the other competitors clearly sets it apart from swimming because psychology becomes important.

The sexiest track race used to be the mile-run. That race doesn't even exist anymore, and has been replaced by the 1500 m run (metric mile). Bejing organizers have placed this race near the end of the competition, for the women on August 23, when we at the Immaculate Inning will be following the contest closely. These days, the top money in track goes to the 100 m dash, which has already been contested over in China. The top American athlete in the event, Tyson Gay, injured himself trying to qualify for the 200 m dash at the US Olympic Trials. His injury was clearly a factor as he finished fifth in the semifinal and did not compete for the gold. Instead, the 100 m dash glory belonged to the Jamaicans.

Usain Bolt is just about the best name for a sprinter anyone could imagine, and the man who specializes in the 200 m distance set a new world record in the shorter. It's likely he could have gone even faster, as one could drive a truck between Bolt and silver medalist Richard Tompson of Trinidad. What's significant, if you watch the replay, is that Bolt was pretty even with the other competitors about halfway through this race. That's because, as a 200 m runner, Bolt's specialty is top speed. While other runners are still accelerating, Bolt has already peaked. NBC also has a slow-motion replay focusing on all 43 of Bolt's steps. After taking about 12 strides to reach full speed, Bolt looks to his right on stride #34, and the clock reads 8.8 seconds behind him. He slows, raises his hands, and pounds his chest as 9.68 flashes on the clock. Afterward, he seemed more concerned with winning the gold instead of world records. But I believe his 100 m dash shows he has the potential to claim the title of fastest man in history.

You see, despite the sexy title of "Fastest Man in the World," given to the current record-holder in the 100 m dash, the fastest speed any human has ever moved under his own power was not in a race of that distance. It was Michael Johnson, running the 200 m dash at the 1996 Olympics, in 19.32 seconds. In fact, Bolt's winning margin reminded me a lot of this race; take a look here. Johnson's average speed would be 10.352 m/s, or 23.17 miles per hour. While a reliable measure of his peak speed does not exist, models predict that he achieved 11.6 m/s in the middle of the race. This would be slower than the actual measured time of Maurice Greene and Donovan Bailey in the 1997 World Championships, both clocked by computer at 11.8 m/s during the 100m dash. Still, the fact that the world record average speed over 100 meters is slower than the world record average speed over 200 meters is amazing.

In addition, Johnson broke the longest standing track record in history when he ran 19.32 in Atlanta. Is it possible that Bolt could break Johnson's record; perhaps as soon as this Wednesday in Bejing? Michael Johnson himself, now a track commentator for BBC, was giddy watching Bolt run the 100m dash. "Michael Phelps? "Michael who?" at this point, and deservedly so...." said Johnson after the race. It is certainly possible that Bolt could have eclipsed 9.66 in the dash, which would beat Johnson's average speed record. Bolt has a personal best of 19.67 in the 200m dash, run earlier this year, and the fifth fastest time ever.

So my eyes will be glued to the screen on Wednesday at 10:20 AM EDT for the 200 m finals, hoping to watch history. Yes, the Olympics have now truly begun.