What reasons are there to think Usain Bolt is clean?

sid waddell

I'm genuinely intrigued.

9.58 seconds is over two tenths of a second faster than Ben Johnson ran in 1988.

Bolt's training partner Yohan Blake has now run 9.69. I'm also genuinely intrigued to know if people believe Blake is running clean or not.

Lance Armstrong's exposing has met with widespread approval. I find it hard to think there would be the same reaction if Bolt was exposed. In fact there seems to be a widespread delusion across the sporting world that this guy must not be questioned.

So. Bolt - clean or cheat?

sconhome

I read this recently Run, Swim, Throw Cheat and to summarise in the case of Bolt, it seems he has the perfect balance of stride length and running cadence which is where he gets all his speed from.

Watching him run he seems to take forever to get up to full height and then stretching his legs he covers the ground so quickly. I don't think he needs to dope to win.

sid waddell

I think it's a fair point that given a level playing field he probably would win.

Is it credible that he runs 19.91 in the 2007 World Championship and then lowers it to 19.30 in a year? That's one hell of an improvement.

And then to post 9.69 in Beijing after not even running in the evnt a year previously?

What about Blake? Is the frequency with which he posts sub-9.80 times credible? As well as a 19.26 time in the 200 in London? Do we believe that somebody of 5"11 can consistently post so many sub 9.80 times clean?

Do we believe that Jamaican sprinters are adequately tested? Do we believe that the testing procedure has much chance of catching dopers?

I think you'd want to be a very trusting person to believe all that.

RayCun

Closing this thread because I love Usain so much and don't want to imagine he could be doping the charter very clearly says

No doping talk! Please no speculation on which athletes may be doping