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On the mend and reflections on Manchester World Cup

by Carl Brewer last modified 2013-11-10 20:37

This time last week I was lying on a bed at the Austin hospital doped to the eyeballs on morphine waiting for surgery to repair a hernia.  Today I'm home, with a new belly button that looks like something out of an Alien movie (it will get better!) after spending the weekend doing what little I could to help at Hilton's sprint camp that we held at DISC.  I'm pretty tired, but am well and trully on the mend.  Jayne has been awesome, but I feel terrible (and you should see the looks I get!) when she loads up with rollers, backpack, bags etc and I saunter along with her, carrying nothing ... It won't last, in a few weeks I'll be carrying stuff again.  Live it up, eh?  heh ...

It's been a very interesting week in sprint cycling.  At the track world cup in Manchester, the mens sprint qualification times were simply stunning. Manchester is not Moscow, it's not a track where times need to be asterisk'ed out, it's a "real" track.  It's not summer there, it's coming into winter, so the conditions would not have been amazing for speed.

Have a look at this :

 

Place Number


F200 speed 100 100-200
1 193 FÖRSTEMANN Robert GER 9.799 73.48 4.838 4.961
2 254 DAWKINS Edward NZL 9.871 72.94 4.905 4.966
3 293 PHILLIP Njisane TRI 9.936 72.46 4.924 5.012
4 106 GLAETZER Matthew AUS 9.944 72.41 4.911 5.033
5 222 PERKINS Shane JAY 9.945 72.40 4.919 5.026
6 169 D'ALMEIDA Michaël FRA 9.947 72.38 4.938 5.009
7 221 LEWIS Peter JAY 9.957 72.31 4.944 5.013
8 195 NIEDERLAG Max GER 9.964 72.26 4.905 5.059
9 276 DMITRIEV Denis RUS 9.976 72.17 4.944 5.032
10 179 CRAMPTON Matthew GBR 10.015 71.89 4.955 5.060
11 134 NAKAGAWA Seiichiro CCT 10.046 71.67 4.986 5.060
12 164 GASCON Juan ESP 10.068 71.51 4.987 5.081
13 306 CANELON Hersony VEN 10.106 71.24 5.003 5.103
14 288 SAVITSKIY Valentin RVL 10.111 71.21 5.027 5.084
15 153 PTACNIK Adam CZE 10.112 71.20 5.003 5.109
16 160 LEVY Maximilian ERD 10.115 71.18 5.034 5.081
17 315 AWANG Azizulhasni YSD 10.115 71.18 4.979 5.136
18 129 BARRETTE Hugo CAN 10.118 71.16 5.006 5.112
19 206 ARCHIBALD Matthew HPS 10.125 71.11 4.981 5.144
20 152 KELEMEN Pavel CZE 10.136 71.03 4.999 5.137
21 158 BALZER Erik ERD 10.137 71.03 4.994 5.143
22 258 WEBSTER Sam NZL 10.143 70.98 5.000 5.143
23 265 ZIELINSKI Damian POL 10.152 70.92 5.022 5.130
24 183 KENNY Jason GBR 10.154 70.91 5.029 5.125
25 104 BULLEN Mitchell AUS 10.160 70.87 5.012 5.148
26 281 SHURSHIN Nikita RUS 10.167 70.82 5.048 5.119
27 208 MULLEN Eoin IRL 10.199 70.60 5.068 5.131
28 207 VELTHOOVEN Simon HPS 10.210 70.52 5.086 5.124
29 248 HOOGLAND Jeffrey NED 10.234 70.35 5.060 5.174
30 142 XU Chao CHN 10.239 70.32 5.064 5.175
31 235 NG Josiah MAS 10.247 70.26 5.056 5.191
32 311 OLIVA Alexander WAL 10.270 70.11 5.072 5.198
33 133 KAWABATA Tomoyuki CCT 10.284 70.01 5.064 5.220
34 269 ESTERHUIZEN Bernard RSA 10.294 69.94 5.116 5.178
35 264 SARNECKI Rafal POL 10.300 69.90 5.088 5.212
36 204 BRETAS Sotirios GRE 10.390 69.30 5.163 5.227
37 163 MORENO Jose ESP 10.395 69.26 5.138 5.257
38 246 BUCHLI Matthijs NED 10.405 69.20 5.130 5.275
39 308 PULGAR Angel VEN 10.437 68.99 5.155 5.282
40 213 CECI Francesco ITA 10.548 68.26 5.200 5.348
41 173 SIREAU Kévin FRA 10.573 68.10 5.103 5.470

 

The top 27 riders rode faster than 10.2s flying 200's.  To qualify in the top 16, you had to ride 10.115 and even then Azizul missed out.  9.9 didn't guarantee top 8!  This is not the Olympics or the world champs, this is just a world cup.  Jason Kenny, the 2012 Olympic champion, rode 10.154 and did not quailfy.  Marty Nothstein, who won at Sydney in 2000, with a 10.166s (fastest qualification time) would not have qualified for this world cup.  He wouldn't have made the cut.

I discussed this somewhat with John Beasley on the w'end (Malaysian track coach).  He's got Azizul up to 10.115 and Josiah at 10.247 over the last few months.  What's the huge change?  It's big gears.  The guys are so much stronger than they've been before and the obsession with small gears and high cadences is over.  I've personally seen Josiah riding very low 10's flying 200's at DISC recently on training wheels with minimal tapering, and he's mid 30's, he's the strongest he's ever been and also the fastest he's ever been. 

No-one is riding 90's anymore, they're all up in the high 100's or bigger.  We know Forstemann rode 114" at Cottbus when he rode 9.7 there a few months ago (~148rpm average for the 200m, outdoors on concrete).  This is a far, far cry from the "old" days of 160+rpm.  Why is this?  Is it a recent discovery?  I suspect a lot of it is increased specialisation, modern sprinters aren't doing the road stuff they used to do, at least, not nearly as much.  They're getting stronger in the gym, stronger on the bike and riding lower cadences where there's less overall contractions, so greater endurance.  It's possible to hit 73km/h on smaller gears, it's certainly been done, but it's very very hard to hold the speed on small gears, you just run out of neural capacity, or "too much revs!".  Put on a bigger gear, and as long as you're strong enough to get it going, you can go further at the same speed.

Very interesting indeed.

Will anyone break the world record, which was set at Moscow (9.572) at a normal track?  They're getting pretty close now ... and not as a one-in-a-million freak, but dozens of riders look capable of it.

 


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