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I got a lot of slack in my article last week when I agreed with Victor Conte’s assessment that 60% of the top 16 in the world were using some kind of drug.
In addition, there was a lot of talk when a 37 year old Kim Collins ran a Personal Best and National Record of 9.97 at Lausanne (4th place) a few weeks back with a horrible reaction time of 0.216 seconds! His 9.97 could easily have been 9.92 seconds with a 0.165 “standard” reaction time. (2nd and 3rd were Asafa Powell’s 9.88 and Mike Rodgers’ 9.96, both were season bests)
Kim Collins agrees that every athlete is now under scrutiny. He said the recent doping cases “leaves a bad taste for all of us.”
He also said “Everyone is judged and I will be judged running fast at my age”.
I couldn’t agree more, but lets look back at his Lausanne race, and I will justify why Kim Collins is clean, with some input from Stuart McMillan over lunch whilst in London for the Anniversary Games
- The wind was +2.0, the maximum allowable limit
- Lausanne is one of the fastest tracks in the world
- Collins was being pulled by a guy who ran 9.79
- Collins was in a race with a bunch of 9.8 – 9.9 sprinters
- He has consistently run low 10.0 every single year. Click here for his progression since 1996!
- He eats well and treats him body like a professional athlete
Jimson Lee
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“He has consistently run low 10.0 every single year. Click here for his progression since 1996!”
This is reason enough. You don’t maintain your speed capabilities over 30 years of age, particularly into your mid-thirties. Eating well??!!
only Jesus Christ knows who is clean and who is not – so even Jimson Lee can not know for sure …. ;-)
I personaly think: ” it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for an athlete to step clean on the podium in worldclass track and field …..
How do you know that Jesus Christ knows?
…your question implicates that you would not believe the answer ;-)
keep the faith folks
cu JJ
Only Thor knows.
did not want to start a religious discussion Fabien – so if Thor is your favourite you are wellcome…..
so I can chance my post and let me say ” only the gods know who is clean and who is not – and we also do not know wether the gods themselves are clean either ….
:-)
I think Points 1 and 2 carry some weight but Points 3 and 4 seem to fly in the face of conventional sprint wisdom. Wouldn’t being pulled by faster sprinters force one out of their own race distribution plan? When is going faster through 60 meters a good thing and when is it a bad thing? I understand conceptually what people mean by race distribution but, at the World Top 20 level, those cats just run and let drugs, therapy, and tapering do the rest. Does that mean Bolt could run 6.19 in an indoor 60 meters just by trying harder because the race is shorter?
And let’s not forget about that great Anti-Doping Agency in St. Kitts (SKADA) and their random, out-of-competition dope testing protocols. Oh wait, it doesn’t exist. http://www.wada-ama.org/en/anti-doping-community/nados/list-of-nados/
Can we get Kim Collins to train Asafa Powell. If Asafa was treating himself as well as Kin does, he would have been over his injury a long time ago and have been able to live up to his potential.
Kim does his best with what he has, if he was a bigger guy, he would be much faster. You missed one point, he loves the sport.
His progression is impressive – 10.3s, to 10.2s, to 10.1s, and then 10.0s shape in 2001/2, and he has kept it up to now, with some peaks for big years and troughs in fallow years (2006 – rest year? Containing only the commonwealth games). He’s done well in the 200m too, and perhaps only tried it seriously for a couple of big events, perhaps this helps his longevity?
Collins’ technique is also all turnover and he is less bulky than all the other runners, he reminds me of Jason Gardener somewhat (great at starts also). GB sprinters are usually less bulky, I’m thinking Campbell, Malcolm, Devonish, Lewis-Francis and even Chambers (what a great career he would have had without the drugs slip up – he’s still going strong at a late age), though we do have exceptions like Harry AA and maybe Edgar (nice to see Edgar and Kwakye signed a petition to get Collins to worlds), although it’s coming back with Dasaolu and Gemili leading the way. Harry AA’s problem seems to be he is too bulky naturally and needs to cut it down! Managed to recently get a PB after hitting a plateau for years with all his bulk.
Dwain Chambers not bulky (92kg for 1m78)!
six reasons why he isnt clean anymore!!!!!!
igf-1 lr3 , igf-1 lr3 , igf-1 lr3, igf-1 lr3 ,igf-1 lr3 , igf-1 lr3
and goes for dwain too and thats where the consistantcy is coming
from too.