For the record, to break 10 seconds for the 100 meters, I do not care what colour your are. You could be Black, White, Yellow, Red, Orange, Purple… even Lime Green.
But a lot of emphasis is made by historically West African decent athletes being the ones able to break 10 seconds, and to some extent, 11 seconds for women.
If you want to see a good video, watch Mike Young’s TED talk on this subject. There is a nice graph outlining your chances of breaking 10.00 seconds.
We had Marian Woronin of Poland run 9.992 which was rounded up to 10.00 (+2.0) in 1984. Technically, not a sub-10.
Frankie Fredericks from Namibia was the first non-West-African to break 10 seconds (9.95), and that in 1991.
Australian Patrick Johnson (9.93 in 2003) was born to an Indigenous Australian and Irish father.
Of course, we all know Christophe Lemaitre (9.92 in 2011)
For Asians, we had Koji Ito of Japan (10.00 in 1998) and Zhang Peimeng (10.00 in 2013) of China. Again, not sub 10.
Yoshihide Kiryu Breaks 10 Seconds (wind assisted)
Fianlly we have Yoshihide Kiryu 9.87 with a +3.3 wind, non allowed for record purposes. But he still broke 10 in his body, and hopefully his body will keep that muscle memory. Sprinting fast is all about efficiency, which is why we use overspeed training methods. See Yoshihide Kiryu, Downhill Running, and Assisted Training Methods article from last year.
If you use the famous Jonas Mureika wind and altitude calculator, that time is “converted” to 10.02. Doh! But if he has a +2.0 allowable win, he would run sub 10 seconds.
It’s a matter of time.
Watch this space.
Jimson Lee
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