New French record for Christophe Lemaitre on the 100m (9"95)

[Janic]

Progressing slowly? How many star 19 year old athletes have gone from running 10.0X to 10.1X, 10.2X, 10.3X and then disappeared by the time they turned 20-21? If he continues to knock 3 to 5 tenths* off his time each season or hell, every 2nd season and he's already under 9.95 I'd say he's making the best of the talent he's been given.

*hundredths is what I mean of course

[123456asdf]

found this elsewhere on the forums:

Ben Johnson's progressions
15 11.5
16 10.79
17 10.66
18 10.62
19 10.25
20 10.30
21 10.19
22 10.12
23 10.00
24 9.95
25 9.83
26 9.79

slow and steady continual improvements will get you there, making hundredths of an improvement each season once youre sub 10 is big

[MiniMoE]

My bet... 100m 9.88 200m 20.05 :-)

I agree with this prediction.

[MiniMoE]

I personally think he looked better last year. Alot more relaxed..much more agressive first part of the race. It seems to me that his coaching team and PR team have taken the fire out of him...he seems happy just to be racing against Lemitre.

Fatigue and jet lag could have been a factor. But it was good to see them run against one another.

[Pioneer]

Not to diminish his achievements in any way but it should be noted that he's progressing fairly slowly for his age from 10.04 as a 19y old, to 9.97 as a 20y old and now 9.95. Sub 9.9 would be quite a jump. He doesn't seem to have one particular weak part in the race that he could easily, within a season, improve upon.

Chambers performance was sadly overlooked in the BBC coverage. I thought it was the best performance from a male athlete in the UK team.

I think the most important point as made before me in the thread is that he is still progressing as not everyone does. Also, it's still relatively early in the season (or approx. midway) so he'll have a number of chances to improve on his PR in bigger races and possibly in an improved condition-depending upon how his coach sets up his peaking schedule.

[Sharmer]

If musculature was the point Harry Aikines would be world champion.
Running fast is more a question of power than a question of bulk or pure strength.
No doubt Lemaitre can apply a very significant amount of force on the track.
IMO this guy can still improve technically speaking, and with a little more power I see him running in the 9.8 on the 100 and 19.6 on the 200 in the months to come.
I see him having a fair chance of medal on the 200 in Daegu, but maybe too few to mention on the 100.

Relative to other sprinters he is very thin, muscle power is multifaceted ( neuromuscular factors,leg stiffness, etc), however cross sectional area (CSA )is also one contributing component of power.

[steeve]

Relative to other sprinters he is very thin, muscle power is multifaceted ( neuromuscular factors,leg stiffness, etc), however cross sectional area (CSA )is also one contributing component of power.

Sure, he is thin, but still as powerful as necessary to run in sub 10.
I would prefer having a 80 kg bench press and running sub 10 than a 150 kg bench press and running 10.3.

[major]

Lemaitre it seems is a sprint specialist. I remember some old thread where someone said that Lemaitre also competed in the long jump when he was younger and was garbage at it (relatively speaking), jumping something like 6m or less?? I would also imagine that he probably doesn't have a high vertical jump or SLJ considering how weak he is with the weights. Most sprinters are fast, strong and can jump high and far. Lemaitre is an absolute specialist at sprinting.

[Janic]

I should bloody hope he is.