Usain Boltin the fabulous sprint career ended with eight Olympic golds, 11 World Cup golds and two personal world records.
In 2009, Bolt ran times that were believed to remain on record books for decades. Maybe longer.
100 meters: 9.58. 200 meters: 19.19.
When Bolt put the whistles in a bag in 2017, a 13-year-old American Erriyon Knighton the goal was not a sprint career but American football. It wasn’t Bolt in the mind, but the superstars of the Yankee football.
Five years later, 18-year-old Knighton is 0.3 seconds away from the 200-meter world record.
Knighton has a sprint coach Petteri Jousteen according to the realistic possibility of wiping Bolt’s name off the record books by 200 meters.
Knighton catches Bolt in a virtual run
Erriyon Knighton ran 200 meters in peak time at 19.49 in Louisiana on May Day. Knighton went fourth in time.
The American improved from his previous record of 35 hundredths last season.
If you compare Bolt’s and Knighton’s record runs, Knighton catches Bolt in the final straight. Knighton is a few hundredths faster than Bolt in the second half.
In Knighton’s record run, the curved balance took 10.26 seconds, with another 100 yards going in 9.23 seconds. In his ME run, Bolt wiped the first 100 meters 9.92, the second 9.27.
Less than 19.50 seconds Yohan Blake has come to an end the fastest.
Blake, who has run the second hardest ever in the 200 meters (19.26), ran the last 100 meters in 9.12 seconds.
– Bolt is the only one who has run a curve in less than 10 seconds, says long-distance sprint coach Jouste.
Watch the video below to see what the encounter between Bolt and Knighton would have looked like.
Knighton with the wind behind
When comparing the record times of the duo, the circumstances must be taken into account.
Bolt ran his world record in 2009 in Berlin. The platform was Mondo, the running place was the stadium. The Jamaican ran his ME to a headwind of 0.3 m / s.
Knighton got a gun on the last day of April with a record time of 1.4 meters downwind at an open track and field track in Louisiana.
Jouste estimates that Knighton got the ideal winds on the curve.
At 200 meters, times can throw a lot because of the wind, which may not be visible on the meter. The anemometer is taken from the front line, the curved wind is not measured.
– Looking at the field where Knighton ran, it was reasonably open. There must have been optimum winds behind the curve, Jouste says.
At 200 meters, the exit from the curve is straight. The runner should stay on the inside edge of the curve when coming straight.
– Many times you see a centrifugal force throwing the runner to the outer edge. Then you will not be able to take advantage of the centrifuge that the curve gives, the Spring line.
The spring glows how well Knighton knows how to run in the curve, even though it clearly loses to Bolt.
In the 19.49 run, Knighton made a clear difference from the other runners from the middle of the curve to 150 meters.
– Especially the middle sectors, the exit from the curve and the final curve are strong for him, as is typical for good 200-meter runners.
Bolt found its true momentum in 2008
Knighton runs 200 meters harder at age 18 than Bolt at age 21. Bolt’s record at 200 meters in 2007 was 19.75.
Based on the statistics, Knighton is clearly ahead of Bolt. The development curve for the former Yankee courier is amazing.
Still, it’s not worth staring too much at statistics.
Bolt took a huge leap in the Beijing Olympics in 2008, running world records on both trips.
Jouste emphasizes that Bolt, who had shone as a junior, was in a twentieth injury cycle, which ate up the development.
– Bolt had serious health problems. He had scoliosis in his back. Even in the Jamaican parliament, there were inquiries as to what would make Bolt rotten.
Bolt started coaching Glen mills and the right workout recipe was found. Bolt was not stopped by 200 meters in the 2008-2016 championships.
In his short running career, Knighton has so far been spared from trouble.
The limit of human performance?
Bolt was a really tall, 196-centimeter runner-up. The 18-year-old Knighton is five cents shorter.
– It made Bolt exceptional, even a freak, that a person so tall had such a good frequency (step frequency). There had been two-meter sprinters in the past, but their frequency was slower, Jouste says.
According to the spring, Bolt and Knigton have no significant differences in running technique.
– Both have a typical sprint step. For example, 10.40 times per 100 meters can be run with very different profiles. The harder times go, the more similar the technology.
The spring estimates that Knighton will run 100 meters at this start time at 9.8. Knighton’s record is 9.99.
Knighton has had years to break Bolt’s world record. Jouste believes Bolt’s record is still valid for a while.
When is Bolt’s ME in danger?
– In the next two years, probably, if all goes well. It is quite possible to break. At 19.19, the limit of human performance has not yet been reached, Jouste estimates.