Usain Bolt (sprinting records merged)

[crownsy]

Who cares what kind of thing Bolt is on.  All this is speculations.  However, the fact that this guy freaking shattered the record is just amazing, inhuman. 

Didn't your second sentence answer your first?  People care about whether his record is natural, to see whether his performance in human or inhuman, natural or unnatural.  Records don't mean a lot to me if they're a product of juice.

the problem with this is how far down the rabbit hole do we go?

example: what about micky mantle, who was a pretty known user of amphetamines and was linked with early "steroids" of that era, yet who is one of the athletes of the "golden" age of clean baseball?

do we give him a pass because chemicals weren't up to snuff in his day by today's standards?

[ACF]

Not to pull anyone's chains or
anything but: If Bolt was from
America would people say he
was using PED's, too?
Please answer truthfully.

[crownsy]

So, what's he taking?

(Call me a cynic, but that Jamaican team is a walking pharmacy.  Multiple Jamaican sprinters being busted for steroids + Bolt shaving tenths off his previous bests in record time + lax testing by the Jamaican doping authorities = giant question marks.)

I'm glad I'm not the only cynic in the house. 

Next subject...Phelps.

I don't think phelps is on anything, he's part of that "live clean" initiative or whatever where he gets tested every other day by olympic level drug testing .

what i do think is that phelps is a phenomenal swimmer who has the benefit of technology the generation before him of phenomenal swimmers never dreamed possible (the LZR suits)and thus is severely over hyped.

I'll be interested to see what phelps swims once those are banned.

[Amonkey]

I am not in denial or anything.  In this day and age where everybody is in on something, I don't really care who is and who isn't on steroids.  I just put that on the side and instead of looking at speculations, I just look at the accomplishment and  what an amazing feat this is.  Whether you are on steroids or not, running a 9.58 100m is unbelievable.  I ran track and got to see a lot of big meets and even the fastest guys would be crushed by Bolt.  

[crownsy]

Not to pull anyone's chains or
anything but: If Bolt was from
America would people say he
was using PED's, too?
Please answer truthfully.

I would, i pretty much consider all track and field to be pretty dirty when it comes to PED's.

Runners have a long history of being in bed with performance enhancing drugs.

[ACF]

Not to pull anyone's chains or
anything but: If Bolt was from
America would people say he
was using PED's, too?
Please answer truthfully.

I would, i pretty much consider all track and field to be pretty dirty when it comes to PED's.

Runners have a long history of being in bed with performance enhancing drugs.

At least you are pointing the
blame finger at everyone.

[Amonkey]

Not to pull anyone's chains or
anything but: If Bolt was from
America would people say he
was using PED's, too?
Please answer truthfully.

If everyone is doing it, then I guess the competition remains the same.

I would, i pretty much consider all track and field to be pretty dirty when it comes to PED's.

Runners have a long history of being in bed with performance enhancing drugs.

At least you are pointing the
blame finger at everyone.

[ACF]

Not to pull anyone's chains or
anything but: If Bolt was from
America would people say he
was using PED's, too?
Please answer truthfully.

I would, i pretty much consider all track and field to be pretty dirty when it comes to PED's.

Runners have a long history of being in bed with performance enhancing drugs.

At least you are pointing the
blame finger at everyone.

If everyone is doing it, then I guess the competition remains the same.

Fixed 

[ACF]

They could all be juicing or
they could be clean. Who knows?

Anyways, here's the race:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=By1JQFxfLMM

[ederson]

They could all be juicing or
they could be clean. Who knows?

IMHO it`s highly unlikely they are clean but as Amonkey said since everyone is doing it the competitions remain fair.

I`m not a doctor but i think peds won`t make me run 100m in 10". 

[nickagneta]

Not to pull anyone's chains or
anything but: If Bolt was from
America would people say he
was using PED's, too?
Please answer truthfully.

As I said I think the whole sport is using and don't really make any differentiation between countries or races or religions. Michael Johnson was a cheater. I am sure Carl Lewis was. Flo Jo was. Bolt is. Doesn't matter the country, it's rampant in the sport.

[thebirdman]

Do some research into 1) Jamaica's team, including the recent sprinters on the team who have been busted for PED's, and 2) the unprecedented rate by which Bolt has improved his own times, in multiple events.

I don`t need to do any research. I have been following track and field my whole life. The least cooperative association has always been USATF...finally in the last couple of years things have gotten a little better...

I am not even saying Bolt is clean but him being Jamaican has nothing to do it. I would have just as big of a doubt if he was american...

[Casperian]

Not to pull anyone's chains or
anything but: If Bolt was from
America would people say he
was using PED's, too?
Please answer truthfully.

Nope.
I don`t believe Lance Armstrong, who is american, or Jan Ullrich, who is german like me, either.

Bike, Track & Field, Swimming...these sports are full of juicers. I know that the american T&F team doesn`t cooperate, either. The thing is, the USA are a big country, with huge resources, who have a history as a dominating country in T&F. As nick said, you probably have to question every record in the last 30 years, if you want to be fair.
But Jamaica was never better than in the last few years, they had a true boom of star-sprinters, and I think the fact that they don`t test their athletes has to be mentioned when people talk about these "inhuman" performances.

I believe there are athletes who don`t take any poison just to make a few dollars more. The "Everyone does it" card is a weak argument, imo.

[makaveli]

And the most scary part is that we can actually do better

[Amonkey]

I just cant believe that this wasn't the #1 story on Sportscenter.  It's like, under the 4th or 5th story on the headlines.  Are you kidding me?  This is one of the most impressive human feats and one the most important records in sports, and instead they are talking about what the Vikings' ballboy said about Favre!  They will probably go on about it for 15 minutes too.  Sportscenter is becoming more and more a joke everyday.

This is the importance of this event.  I found out about the record when my Macedonian worker received a text message from his dad in Macedonia.  Just think about it, there is a 50 yr old Macedonian that was so impressed he thought about sending a text message to his son (which probably cost him money).