Last Updated on September 30, 2013 by Jimson Lee
In stunning fashion, LaShawn Merritt upset Jeremy Wariner to win the Olympic Gold medal in 43.75.
LaShawn Merritt appeared to be left in the blocks with a 0.318 reaction time. But in a 400 meters, the reaction time is not as critical as your first 40-60 meters which sets you up for the entire race. You have to go hard or go home.
It is also a personal best for LaShawn, and the Olympic Final is a great time to set a personal best.
I prefer to go hard for the first 40 meters then relax, but Clyde Hart has his athletes driving hard the first 60 meters. Anywhere around 7 seconds is ideal to use up your ATP-CP stores.
Like the previous Olympics in 2004, and in 1988, The Americans made it a sweep with David Neville diving in for 3rd place ahead of Chris Brown of Bahamas. Neville out of Lane 9 gets a bronze medal and a 9.5 from the diving judges.
Everyone is now going to blame Jeremy Wariner’s coaching change for his failure to repeat his Gold medal in Beijing Olympics.
Now what?
Onto the relays. Who runs anchor now? Jeremy is used to running 3rd handing it off to Darold Williamson during his Baylor years, and even in the 2004 4×400 Olympics despite winning the individual Gold medal.. Since 2005, he has always run anchor in the 4x400m.
But first, I’ll go through the hundreds of entries in the 400 meter Olympic Prediction contest.
UPDATE: YouTube and NBC Olympics are cracking down on illegal copies of this broadcast. Therefore, check back on this site in a few hours for the latest video of LaShawn Merritt Olympic 400 meter victory in 43.75.
A few brief comments,
One reaction time doesn’t matter in the short or long sprints.
You will have the person with the fastest reaction by hundredths of a second lose by several tenths of a second.
Two, the start does set up the rhythm of the race, the most important thing to do with a start is set you rhythm, setting a rhythm means getting your hips moving.
Third think about this what if they are wrong about energy use, what if the goal is not to use it, but be more efficient and use less of it? That so many seconds of energy is under max conditions right? If you are maxed out then you are not being efficient.
Lastly still you can see how inefficient warner is over the last 100m versus merritt, but his problem start ed well before the final 100 meters with being inefficient.
Jimson or Adarian, would either of you consider the 400m the ultimate distance race for sprinters? Interesting observation, Adarian, but I haven’t been able to see any replays of the race yet. I read the following in the L.A. times this morning:
LaShawn Merritt left nothing to chance. He broke down video of his 400-meter Olympic semifinal race and video of everyone who would be in the final Thursday night. He studied how Jamaica’s Usain Bolt had run the straightaway of his world-record performance in the 200. He made a game plan.
“I probably went over the race a million times in my head,” Merritt said.
One thing had struck the U.S. runner as he watched the video. He saw others had taken fewer steps in the semifinals even though, at 6 feet 3, he was taller. He noticed how Bolt had used his height, 6 feet 5, to full advantage by maximizing stride length.
“I learned something from Bolt’s race,” Merritt said. “He really opened up [his stride] coming down the homestretch.
“I used to run that way back in high school, before I started to get all technical. So I came here and said I’m just going to open up and let it fly, and that’s how it played out.”
His last statement concerning ‘get all technical’ is funny because it’s probably true for the specific moment but the technical stuff was absolutely necessary for his foundation. I hope younger and future sprinters don’t read too much into his ‘let it fly’ comment without putting in the extra effort to develop technique. I wonder why Merritt or his coaches didn’t notice his stride length leading up to the finals or was his semi-final race an aberration in this regard. I’m glad he realized his talent and won because he certainly has been putting tremendous pressure on Wariner this year bar none. I’m not sure Wariner’s coaching change or anything else could have saved him the gold. I hope their battles continue.
All the sprints races are different. the 60/100/200/400.
I would compare the 400 and 800 more than I would the 400 and say the 100.
The question is what did he do in one day to improve stride length?
And what is the definition of stride length?
To me your stride length is far your hip travel between contacts regardless of where the foot lands.
So when you think about stride length and speed, the more efficient you are at moving your hips the faster you will run.
Look at the women’s 800m, first lap in 54, second lap in 60, you can’t be wasteful turning the first lap in 54 and expect to come back in 60.
Look at Warner’s body movement versus Merritt the whole race not just teh final 100.
@Fred – the ultimate sprinting distance should be 40 seconds long!
Also, they should bring back the straight 200 meters. Then you will see a 18.99 from Bolt.
In your above article, you speak about how Baylor runs the first 60 meters all out. You say that its good to use your all of your atp-cp which is about 7 seconds, why should you use all of your atp-cp early in the race?
Running the first 60m all out doesn’t mean you are going to use all of atp-cp.
Plus I think all out clears up the question of how hard should I get out? Very little room for an athlete to not understand all out versus get out hard.
Think about this what is using more energy when sprinting, the speed of limb movement or force application?