That's an interesting question, and one which I've actually studied. Most
world class 100m sprinters hit top speed around 60m. A 200m sprinter will
have a more conservative acceleration profile, reaching top speed a bit
later (say 75m), albeit a lower speed (say, 11.5m/s vs 11.9m/s).
I tried pitting two simulations against one another (100m and 200m
sprinters) in a straight 100m race to see what happened. The 100m guy
still wins out. The differences in 100 and 200m running make more of a
difference around 150m -- that's where the 100m guy dies, and the 200m guy
still has what it takes to finish the race.
Of course, these were simulations based on my models, so take the results
as you see fit.
J.
On Tue, 17 Sep 2002, Ed and Dana Parrot wrote:
> If Montgomery is to be believed that he had a poor start (and my viewing of
> it yesterday does not bear that out), then possibly that is one of many
> reasons for his great time - he didn't hit his top speed until later in the
> race, so he decelerated least. I have often wondered if perhaps the ideal
> 100m acceleration pattern is not to have the peak speed be at 60-80 meters,
> but instead to be a sustained buildup with the peak at 85-90 meters. It's a
> very difficult proposition to test, but I'd be curious to hear others'
> thoughts on it.
>
> - Ed Parrot
>
>
>
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: "Mike Prizy" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
> To: "Track List" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
> Sent: Tuesday, September 17, 2002 6:11 PM
> Subject: t-and-f: Montgomery on reaction time
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
> On today's USATF teleconference, Tim Montgomery had this remark regarding
> his fast reaction time (I
> think Walt asked this question.)
>
>
> http://usatf.org/news/showRelease.asp?article=/news/releases/2002-09-17.xml
>
>
> Q: Although you had a tremendous reaction time in Paris, you said you didn't
> really have a good
> start. Could you explain that?
>
> A: Power forward is movement forward, but my power came upward so the power
> went up in the air.
> That's why (Dwain) Chambers was with me and the field was with me at 10 and
> 20 meters. ...
>
>
> "You can have a reaction but the reaction is just movement. It depends on
> movement up or down, but
> my movement wasn't forward."
>
>
> ... So it helped me, but it didn't help me. Other than the pull-up, I had
> the perfect race. I did
> not have a slow down at any part of the race. The race actually got faster
> coming in and that's hard
> for a lot of sprinters to do. That's the reason the world record went. I
> didn't have any slow
> movement during the race. It was just a steady hard run.
>
>
>
>
