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Asafa Powell or Bob Hayes - World’s Fastest 100 meters?

October 10, 2008 by Jimson Lee

POP QUIZ: Who has the World Record for the 4×100m fastest 100 meter relay split ?

This is not an official event, as timing consistency varies, but we all love stats, right?

Ever since I started watching the Olympics in 1972, historians always referred to “Bullet” Bob Hayes 8.5 second 4×100 meter anchor relay leg at the 1964 Tokyo Olympics. If you convert that split to a FAT, that translates to 8.74 seconds.

Of course, Bob Hayes won the open 100 meter earlier, and his come from behind victory in the 4×100m relay made him the fastest man alive under any conditions. Ask anyone who witnessed that relay leg.

Jocelyn Delecour, France’s anchor leg runner, famously said to Paul Drayton before the relay final, “You can’t win, all you have is Bob Hayes”.

Afterwards, Drayton replied, “All you need is Bob Hayes”.

So Who is the Fastest?

In the 4×100 meter relay at the 1992 Barcelona Olympics, Carl Lewis anchored the relay in a World Record of 37.40 seconds, which was recently beaten by Jamaica’s 37.10 at the 2008 Beijing Olympics. Carl ran an “officially recorded” split of 8.85 seconds for the anchor leg.

Still not faster than Bob Hayes.

At the 2007 World Championships in Osaka, Asafa Powell recorded a 8.84 anchor split.

Still not faster than Bob Hayes.

Finally, at the 2008 Beijing Olympics, Asafa Powell’s split time was recorded at 8.70 seconds by the USTAF High Performance Registered Split Analysis team.

So that gives Asafa the WR for the “fastest 100m split”. I’m sure he prefers the Gold medal instead.

One day, we will see Usain Bolt anchor the relay, and with his 200m speed endurance, don’t be surprised if he splits 8.60 seconds! If you look at his 10 meter splits, ignore the first 10 meters, and add 0.84 seconds to his last 10 meter segment, he can clearly go under 8.60 running 100 meters “on the fly”.

Or faster.
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Written by Jimson Lee · Filed Under Olympic History, Track and Field 

Comments

8 Responses to “Asafa Powell or Bob Hayes - World’s Fastest 100 meters?”

  1. Rehab Hottie on October 16th, 2008 8:28 am

    I doubt that I could drive my car as fast as he can run!

  2. Tamara on November 15th, 2008 11:01 am

    GIVE ME A SUMMARY OF WHY YOU DO OR DON’T THINK ASAFA POWEL IS FASTER THAN USAIN BOLT

  3. Jimson Lee on November 16th, 2008 7:58 pm

    @Tamara - see:

    http://speedendurance.com/2008/08/22/usain-bolt-100m-10-meter-splits-and-speed-endurance/

  4. Vincent on December 17th, 2008 9:14 am

    It simply gives you an idea of the fabulous speed of Bob Hayes. According to some estimates, the speed advantage of today’s Mondo synthetic tracks over yesterday’s cinder tracks may well be of at least 25/100th per 100m. Do the math. Even if you take most experts conservative estimates of Hayes’ electronic time (between 8″80 and 8”90), he still might (in absolute terms) be the fastest that ever lived. And this without taking into account the fact that he ran more than 40 years ago. Since then, there has been additional evolutions in training methods, shoes, etc.

  5. Jimson Lee on December 18th, 2008 8:42 pm

    @Vincent - I still like to see Bob Hayes run on today’s hard tracks, and louder speakers installed on the blocks.

  6. Dwain Chambers on Usain Bolt, Asafa Powell, Stride Length and Stride Frequency | SpeedEndurance.com on January 4th, 2009 11:58 pm

    […] Asafa Powell has the World’s Best for the 100 meter relay leg: 8.7 seconds anchor leg compared to Bolt’s 9.0 on the curve with two baton exchanges. But I […]

  7. crystal kelly on January 31st, 2009 8:41 pm

    to me and most of the jamaican population asafa powell is the faster of the two. don’t forget that he was once the fastest man in the world before bolt and is currently the second fastest human on the planet. he has represented jamaica well, making the country very proud of his achievements. i do not wish to hear of bob hayles because i do not know anything about him nor his achievements,all i know is that asafa is a great athlete and i will never forget what he has done for our little island. clearly, whether he wins or lose a race does not matter to me because he is my hero and will always remain my hero.

  8. Usain Bolt Speed Reserve vs. Michael Johnson Speed Endurance? | SpeedEndurance.com on February 19th, 2009 9:23 am

    […] Carter ran 10.41 & Michael Frater’s split was 9.01. This is considerably slower than Asafa Powell’s 8.7 “World best” relay leg. Before I get flamed, you can’t compare apples and oranges, or rather, the 3rd leg vs. the […]

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