Last Updated on March 20, 2013 by Jimson Lee
Did Usain Bolt have a higher top end speed as compared to Berlin 2009?
Did he really run 27.794 mph?
I don’t have access to my high end equipment right now (it’s kind of hard to do 10 meter splits on an Android phone), but here are some recent published data from El Pais in Spanish. (Many thanks to Artur Pastor García, who will be guest writing here after the Games are over, so stay tuned)
You can slice and dice all you want in the quest to shave 0.05 seconds. Immediately you can see how he can shave 0.02 from his reaction time.
Please note that these are from two different studies and sources (except for reaction time). If you want to see a consistent source, you can go to the end of the article for the infographic or go to El Pais.
Usain Bolt’s Top 3 Races
Eventually I will combine all the data as well as get more reliable sources for 10 meter and 20 meter splits.
It’s clear that 0.81 sec/10m is the Holy grail for sprinting. If you look at 1.61 sec/20m, that’s 0.805 sec/10m or 44.72 kph!
Another Example from Same Source
Note they are subtracting the reaction time for the first 20 meters.
Click on the Image below to enlarge.
Image source: El Pais
I want to say this study is from Javier Aguado, a great biomechanist working in the university who is always writting very good articles about sprinting and other sports. His articles in the webpage of “El Pais” are a wide database where take info from. You can search another very good articles by him in teh web.
@radunga, thanks for clarifying.
Bolt the first guy to hold the 100, 200, and 400 meters all at one time.