Well, if you see my post on Bolt's semifinal run he ran a 9.84 and let up about 20 meters out looking around and smiling. With Gatlin pushing him through the finish I was expecting a faster time.
Swimming is mainly a wealthy country sport where you need infrastructure such as pools. The USA because of its wealth is disproportionately advantaged in this event. Combine that with the high number of swimming medals given out in the Olympics, the USAs athletic dominance is overstated by just looking at the medal count.
i can sort of understand the idea that having different ways to swim from point A to point B creates superfluous medals compared to other sports. there are definitely a lot to be had. in terms of the same people winning, is that the case? phelps is presumably the greatest swimmer ever and only has one of his golds from individual freestyle. without looking up every medalist, i don't recall many people winning in different strokes so crossing over to different strokes doesn't seem very prevalent. that's another thing. swimming seems to involve quite a few countries and be quite popular so having lots of medals doesn't seem to be crazy. now obviously america is the most dominant swimming country so we benefit the most. if anything is underrepresented it would presumably be team sports. the two most popular sports in the world, soccer and basketball, award as many medals as jumping long once and jumping long 3 times, and that's without considering jumping high off one foot. not that i really want them to change that, but it's still interesting.
well, a large population from which to choose athletes and a large amount of wealth with which to train those athletes is pretty much the basis for olympic dominance. and while we have a population advantage over most of the other swimming countries, it's not like the US is appreciably wealthier than europe, russia, australia, china, and japan, who seem to be the other dominant swimming countries. great britain is pretty far up the medal count and certainly has plenty of money to be good at swimming. and outside of running quickly and jumping far, it seems like most olympic events would require some pretty specific training and/or equipment. those bows the archers use look like they were engineered at CERN.
For anyone interested in hearing Michael Johnson's reaction to his record being broken: http://screengrabber.deadspin.com/wayde-van-niekerk-smashes-michael-johnsons-17-year-old-1785282344
Does he have recorded 40 times? I definitely get that Bolt's speed comes more int eh second half of the 100 than the first. That said, I was just doing math. From a pure math equivalency perspective, I think this is the math: 1 yard = .9144 meters 40 yards = 36.576 meters So an athlete would have to run 2.734 40 yards in a row to get to 100 meters. Which basically means Bolt's 100 meter world record is indeed the mathematical equivalent of a 3.5 second 40 yard dash.
Not quite that simple. Only the first 40 yards would be equivalent. The last 60 yards or so would be at full speed. A large portion of the first 40 would be getting up to speed. Therefore the back half of the race is run much faster than the first half so it skews the overall time. i don't think Bolt has ever run the football 40 (no starting blocks) but I though I saw somewhere his flat measurement is about a 4.2, give or take. Even with his slow start,he would still almost assuredly have elite NFL 40 times, but he wouldn't be the fastest in the world.
Actually.... basketball is no where close to the most popular sport in the world.. I believe Cricket, Field Hockey, Tennis Volley Ball are all more popular in terms of estimated fans. On another note maybe they should add a 3 point shoot out and a judging type system for a dunk contest to the Olympics so they can aware more medals?
Went to Jamaica a few years ago, and it's almost impossible to overstate just how popular this guy is, at least commercially. I'm not sure I saw another person's face on a billboard my entire time there.
Cricket has Millions or 100 Millions of Indian fans. Basketball has huge follower numbers in Asia, especially Taiwan and China. Tennis and Volley Ball have solid and steady number of supporters in Europe and other countries. Soccer is no doubt still No1 watchable sports. Brazil World Cup over 900 Million watching vs Super Bowl that year estimated 100 something Million watching. Just sayin.
Regarding Bolt and the 40 yard dash. In his first heat former Cal and Detroit Lion Jahvid Best ran against him. Best was timed at 4.35 at the NFL Combine. Bolt destroyed him in the 100m and everyone else in that heat. The fastest official Combine time is 4.24 by Rondel Mendez in 1999. Unofficially Bo Jackson is said to have been timed at a 4.1.
Bolt doesn't need the money or fame but imagine him at receiver? At 6'-5 he's taller than Randy Moss but much much faster.
OK, then you can just look at the range of which the medals come in. No other country can match the U.S. so it's still domination.
Judo is one of the mos popular sports and in previous Olympics has had the most countries competing in it. Judo doesn't require a lot of money or equipment to play and also is very similar to many local types of grappling. One reason why Mongolians and central Asian countries do well is that it is very similar to indigenous wrestling styles still practiced. The Olympics could easily increase the number of medals contested by Judoka by including BJJ and Mongolian wrestling or even MMA. The problem is that I don't think the IOC likes combative sports and at times has tried to get rid of Judo and wrestling. Considering the IOC is adding surfing to the next Olympics and recently added BMX it is clear they're more interested in sports where there is more individual showmanship rather than having competitors directly fight each other.
I don't think they dislike martial arts, but it's true that they put a lot of emphasis on showmanship, TV eyes and money. even boxing was changed a lot and is being judged much more based on spectacle now than in the past.
I knew something was up with the 100 final -- Bolt and Gatlin both said they had 'dead legs'. There was a schedule change and instead of 2 hours of rest they only had one hour -- Bolt said he never got to rest and had to rush to be on time for the final.
I didn't even know it was the norm for a semi final and the final to be run in the same day! I thought they got a full day after they qualify.
