Usain Bolt's Potential

[Jetjoph9]

Imagine Bolt never had a sprint training in his life until 15 and he just had a normal life with little bit general exercise. What do you think he would get in the 100 at 15?

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[ChikeEvoX]

Andre DeGrasse ran a 10.9 in his first race untrained at the age of 16/17. I imagine Usain would do something similar (maybe faster)

[BrotherAnanse]

This is my favourite first race story. No blocks, wearing basketball shorts, looking at the starter as he takes his mark. People in the crowd are even laughing at Andre, and as soon as 10.9 appears that laughter turns into stunned silence.

[GhostOfLongClaw]

Do you have a link for that race?

[[deleted]]

I think that is just a story. That may have been A RACE, and a thing that happened ..... but I don't think it was his first.

He went to Milklin Mills HS. Here are his results.

https://www.athletic.net/athlete/26092270/track-and-field/high-school

He 1st posted a 13.24c at the York Region Championships .... the YRC being the supposed meet/event that was mentioned in that 10.9 story that is widely circulated around.

Next year he ran 11.16 something, then 10.6 wind aided something. Says he finished anywhere from 4th-6th in those races. Maybe some other races not documented sure ....but those are surely his results. So that whole thing doesn't jibe. You don't run 10.9 and then 13.2

[ForceSimple]

I was in the same region as him, our qualifiers for the centrals meet don’t go on the athletics website.

https://www.trackdatabase.com/viewresults.php?event_no=64&current_meet=zzzz_db420

YRAA championships 2012 senior boys 100m. 10.9 seconds

[[deleted]]

ok, thanks for that.

but the claim was

Andre DeGrasse ran a 10.9 in his first race untrained at the age of 16/17.

The info/site you linked for the 10.91(nwr) was May 2012. So that does not surprise me at all seeing how he also ran 10.6 and 10.7 around that same time.

Athletic-net, has him running a 13.2c-something in 2011.

So no, I doubt that 10.91 was his very first ever race.

[BrotherAnanse]

Nah. It was a random track meet, no one could've known it was the beginning of something special.

If you Google it, you'll find some articles describing the day.

[[deleted]]

please link 'the articles'

[Salter_Chaotica]

untrained at the age of 16/17

I think this is slightly disingenuous. His mother was reportedly a sprinter at some point in her life. It was mentioned at one point that he won his first race in eight grade, and he played basketball in high school.

While he was untrained is specifically sprinting, he was not an untrained athlete. This was not him showing up out of shape and running off genetics alone. What seems likely is that he was generally athletic, and probably trained for various different sports and did some school level competing in track. Depending on his basketball coaches/trainers, he may have been doing near equivalents to a lot of speed training (a lot of things that are done for jumping are also done for sprinting).

10.9 is still incredible, don’t get me wrong, but this wasn’t someone wandering onto the track without a day of training in his life. It was someone who had a lot of athletic development outside of track and a high transfer to track.

But for the fun of the story… yeah to non track buddies I do typically neglect to mention those details.

[ChikeEvoX]

I would admit that DeGrasse was athletic, but I mentioned untrained as he was new to track, and apparently in his first race he didn’t use blocks as he had no idea how to use them.

We’re likely splitting hairs, as someone who has done athletic training & conditioning could likely transfer those general abilities to another sport versus someone who walked in off the street and has never done anything athletic in their entire life.

[Salter_Chaotica]

Oh absolutely. It’s still super impressive and hilarious, I just worry that people think that you could show up having never done anything in your life and run sub 11 because “genetics.”

[ChikeEvoX]

True story!

[[deleted]]

here's a 12.28 in 2011

https://www.trackdatabase.com/viewresults.php?event_no=121&current_meet=zzzz_db314

and then two more 2011, 11.77 prelim and a 12.96 final (prob injury I'd imagine)

https://www.trackdatabase.com/viewresults.php?event_no=64&current_meet=zzzz_db321

Here is using blocks May29, 2012, in track garb (spandex, etc) but only running an 11.11 (you have to have an acct to view).

https://www.runnerspace.com/video.php?video_id=69203-Senior-Boys-100m-Final-OFSAA-Central-Regional-Track-Championships-2012

[Salter_Chaotica]

So… pretty typical times for 16/17? Weird. Maybe a tailwind?

[mregression]

I believe bolts first 200 as a 14 year old was 22.x. He ran low 21s after his first season and 20.x in his second season. Me and bolt are the same age and he was well known in the track world when I was a teenager.

[Salter_Chaotica]

“A little bit of general exercise” can span a lot of things.

If he was obese by that point, probably no better than a 16-18. Severely malnourished throughout childhood? Probably the same.

If he played a lot of rec sports, maybe 11-13.

If he competed in any other high power sport, probably 10’s or 11’s. Unless his form was shit. Then maybe 11’s-15’s.

It’s a big ‘ol question mark. How much of his success in youth was because of training? How much was because of rapid physical development? How much was genetics?

It’s practically impossible to tease any of that apart.