By This would be a great opportunity for everyone in Korea to possibly see the greatest sprinter ever in action in 2011 if Usain Bolt decides to attend:
Jamaican Olympic and world champion sprinter Usain Bolt will return to China next month for a 100-meter race in Shanghai, his agent said Tuesday.
The Sept. 20 race will be Bolt’s first in Asia since his triumphant performances at the 2008 Beijing Olympics.
Bolt, 23, also is considering a Sept. 25 sprint race in Daegu, South Korea, which will host the next world track and field championships in 2011. [ESPN]
If you haven’t seen video of Bolt’s recent races I highly recommend you check them out because what this guy is doing is just incredible.
6:27 pm on August 25th, 2009 1
[DELETED BY ADMIN]
8:59 pm on August 25th, 2009 2
I bet that comment made you feel really original. You should pat yourself on the back for being such a superior being that seeing history's fastest human (emphasis) leaves you unphazed. I really respect your opinion. I hope you keep spreading your message of love behind that veil of anonymity.
10:04 pm on August 25th, 2009 3
Q: Why did Usain Bolt come so fast?
A: He was trying to get his nut.
12:12 pm on August 26th, 2009 4
I don't know if you can say he is the fastest "ever" when modern history has only been keeping records for a very, very limited time relative to the billions of years this planet has been spinning. I'd say he is the current fastest man alive over short distances (hopefully, he won't have it tarnished by a doping scandal) and probably the fastest since modern record keeping began among those who have raced in sanctioned events. There may have been others who have been faster while racing for their lives, but we will never know as they weren't "officially" recorded.
I also love how weathermen speak of it being the coldest or hottest day/season/year ever, when any eigth grade science book will inform you otherwise. The world is in constant flux and will continue to change until the sun eventually goes nova on whatever descendents are left on this rock of ours.
2:10 pm on August 26th, 2009 5
The Guinness Book people have created an entire industry with the documentation and Verification of superlatives. Most of us take their reports as fact.
A lot of history is subjective evaluation of ambiguous accounts and evidence. When it is, it should be recognized as such. Did people in Genesis really live for 900+ years?
But, when we have events that can be objectively verified against all other similarly verified events, then they move from the area of speculation to fact.
As far as adrenaline induced speed is concerned. It's possible that if a raging tiger were chasing Tyson Gray that day, he might have outrun Bolt and set an even lower record. But, with the same conditions, in that same event, with Bolt also feeling the breath of that tiger at his back, he would probably have still outrun Gray and set a lower record.
There is nothing wrong with saying he is the fastest in history.
3:01 pm on August 26th, 2009 6
Calling Bolt the fastest “ever” is still a misnomer. You seem to be leaving out all the people who lived on the planet previous to modern (electronic) verification that didn't run in an event (and a distance measurement–meters) that didn't exist before that book of records even existed (1955). It's hard to take such a recent sliver of the world's history as a totality.
I have a bit of a problem with these so-called sports records when the playing field isn't as even as it was in the time of the non-shoe and clothes wearing Greek games, and personally, I don't buy that any man lived for that long unless he is a character in one of Heinlein's books, which, of course, are also fiction.
I do give today's modern athletes a leg up on their nutrition and training regimens over their predecessors though. I also agree that Bolt is a marvelous short distance runner and definitely today's best that the world “knows” about, but I also had a friend that would have been an NFL caliber quarterback, but real life forced him, and countless other would be athletes, off the playing fields/tracks/courts/etc., before they could even showcase their talents for the record books.