Whenever there is a standout performance in athletics, I see several comments and headlines inferring that “this time” must mean that they are going to go “this much faster” next time, and of course , it is never that simple, as is life in general. One of the most common examples is whenever Noah Lyles runs a fast 200m time. For years, both he and his fans have spoken about breaking the seemingly untouchable records of Usain Bolt, especially the 200m, which in fairness he is much closer to than in the 100m. Of course, it is the job of an athlete and their associates to ‘big up’ their party in any way, so this is to be expected. It is now just that the general public seems to think all progress in the sport is immediately linear, similar to how in football (soccer) if team A beats team B 1-0, and team B beat team C by that score, then team A must be better than team C, even without them playing yet. Those who watch football know this is far from the case. In athletics and in general, activities where the goal is pushing one’s body to new heights, there is an important difference between raising your general ceiling and then having a breakthrough. This comes from listening to elite coaches such as Glen Mills and Stephen Francis, and even my personal experience as a former competitive swimmer. Great improvement does not just come overnight. It is highly unlikely for an athlete who regularly runs 10.0s for the 100m to suddenly drop to consistent 9.80s, for example. There are occasions yes when it is simply a perfect storm and the performance of a lifetime, where they produce something extraordinary and well beyond anything they did previously or ever will do again in their careers. The best example of this might be Bob Beamon’s former long jump World record of 8.90m at the 1968 Olympics. This record was a whopping 55cm further than the previous record at the time (8.35m), and even Beamon, who had a slightly shorter PB coming in at 8.33m was in such a state of shock that he was unable to jump again during the competition (not that he needed to). This record stood for nearly 23 years, and is still the second furthest wind legal jump in history. His Olympic record as a result has now entered its 56th year, and unless someone has their own ‘Beamonesque’ performance, it will remain this way, as no current long jumper has a PB over 8.70m.
The usual way these stellar performances happen is constant improvement until a certain threshold becomes the norm, and then a breakthrough is made. For years, Shelly-Ann Fraser-Pryce would run seasons best times in the 10.70s. She won her first Olympics in Beijing with 10.78s, and up until taking a break from the sport for the birth of her son in 2017, had won all her titles with times between 10.70 and 10.80. These times were already extremely fast; her then PB of 10.70s put her in the top 10 all time, but she just seemed unable to break into the mythical 10.60s territory, which at the time only 3 women had done before (one of which, Marion Jones, was found guilty of doping). After running 10.70 and 10.71 seasons bests in consecutive years in 2012 and 2013, I said to myself that it has to be coming soon. A couple years earlier, Carmelita Jeter had broken through this barrier twice, running 10.64s and 10.67s, and with her usually being second best to Fraser-Pryce I thought “well surely Shelly’s time is coming now”. Years passed and she left the sport and came back in 2019 to sensationally once again become world champion in, you guessed it, 10.71s. She was back to the time she seemed to run every occasion a title was on the line like nothing changed. COVID-19 stopped the sporting world in 2020, but in 2021 she had finally broken through; her body was so used to the 10.7s that it was able to propel her further. She ran 10.63s early in the season in Jamaica, becoming the second fastest woman ever at the time. Sadly for her, she could not repeat this for most of the year, ‘only’ running 10.7s as she finished with silver in the 100m at the Olympics, behind Elaine Thompson-Herah, who also showed this kind of time progression to her winning time of 10.61s. They would both lower their PBs even further later in the year, to 10.54s and 10.60s respectively, further cementing their positions as the second and third fastest women ever. I wondered at the time if this was it for Fraser-Pryce, as she had progressed to the occasional 10.6s clocking, while 10.7s seemed to be her new normal. Thompson-Herah on the other hand was running 10.6s regularly from the Olympics onward, so her 10.54s came as yet another ‘breakthrough’ moment. Next year however, things got even more shocking, when Fraser-Pryce opened her season with a 10.67s and proceeded to run that exact time 4 times over the season, including when she retained her world title from 2019 in Eugene. She also ran times of 10.66s, 10.65s and 10.62s, leaving the world utterly shocked, and her with no doubters that she could run until the 2024 Olympics at the top of her game. In fact, if she was younger I would have even thought this was a precursor to her eventually running 10.5s or faster, but ‘Father Time’ was just not on her side for that. Sadly, both women have had their injury concerns over the past 2 seasons, and thus have been unable to push on, but I think I have made my point.
This leads me to the male sprinters, and if i think anyone can challenge a Usain Bolt world record (spoiler: I don’t). However, there was one person I thought capable of finally breaking below 9.7s again since Bolt retired, and now I think he has been replaced by another. Since Bolt’s retirement, sub 9.8s clockings have become exceedingly rare, with only a handful of men doing it, and usually only once or twice, with both performances coming far apart. The exception to this was Fred Kerley, the 2022 World Champion, who ran sub 9.8s three times in a row, including twice in the same day. This was the first time I thought someone seemed capable of running so fast and consistently without it being an absolute breakthrough run, so maybe he would be able to join the likes of Tyson Gay and Yohan Blake in 9.6s land. Alas, he has been unable to break even 9.9s more than 3 times since then, so those performances may have been his ceiling. That brings us to two men who have caught my eye and replaced him in this stead, especially the one whom I now think can possibly even run 9.6s (still, not close to Bolt’s 9.58). They are a pair of young Jamaicans. Firstly, Oblique Seville has finished 4th at the last two world championships, and run consistent 9.8s times during that span. A few other men have done this as well, but the difference was that on two occasions, I saw Seville run that time either slowing down significantly, or taking it relatively easy during the race. Once, in Jamaica when he first ran under 10s in 2022, improving all the way to 9.86s while appearing to ease down at the line, and then in 2023 during his heat at the world championships, running the second easiest 9.86s I have ever seen, after Bolt himself. During both seasons he ran 9.9s and 9.8s several more times, but was unable to improve his PB further. That being said, his age, and the consistency he was showing as well as the ease he did some of these times gave me Deja vu of the legendary female sprinters mentioned earlier. 9.7 is coming, it’s just a matter of when. This was further validated this season, as he has run a new PB of 9.82s twice, and again he did not run fully through the line on both occasions. The first time while looking over at the vanquished Lyles, and the second when realizing he could not catch the second man I will mention shortly. If all things are equal, I will be shocked if Seville does not finally dip below 9.8s at the Olympics, as I think 9.8s has become second nature to him like almost no one else. I said almost no one, because Kishane Thompson, the man who beat Seville when he ran his second 9.82, is a Stephen Franics trained prodigy, akin to Asafa Powell levels of talent. If you are unaware, Powell is only the 4th fastest man ever, with a 9.72s PB, and a former 100m world record holder. Since breaking through last year, Thompson has completed 8 100m races, running sub 10s in 7 of them, and sub 9.9 an astonishing 5 times. He has run some of these times against the biggest names too, having come second in the Xiamen Diamond League last year in 9.85s to former world champion Christian Coleman’s 9.83, and then running a 9.87 in the Diamond League final, again finishing behind Coleman who ran the same time, and being out-dipped on the line by Lyles and Ferdinand Omanyala to finish 4th. This caused me to sit up and take notice, and his excellent form and powerful build reminded me of Powell and made me boldly predict him as a 2024 Olympic medalist from the end of last season. This year, he has improved even faster than I thought, running the 3 other sub 9.9s times previously mentioned, while not going all out on any occasion. Times of 9.82s, 9.84s and astoundingly, 9.77s were ran at the recently concluded Jamaican Olympic trials, where he and his coach admitted he just did enough to make the team, and that was why he shut down from 10-30 meters out in each race. He has suffered from injury issues throughout his budding career, and this restricted his appearances last season. Having seen what he can do when healthy, i think it’s fair to give he and his coach the benefit of the doubt and believe them when they say he’s holding back to remain healthy for the biggest stage. 9.8s are second nature to him, and having run 9.77s while holding back, I think we finally have someone who can break into 9.6s territory once more.
On a final note, about Noah Lyles, when he ran his US record 19.31s to win the World Championship in 2022, I believe this was his ‘breakthrough’. It made him the third fastest man ever at the distance, and admittedly within touching distance of Blake in second with 19.26s and possibly even Bolt at 19.19s. However, leading up to that run, he has started to run 19.5-19.7s regularly, signaling that a breakthrough was coming. Since then, he has reverted back to the mean, regularly running 19.5-19.7s, with a 19.46s in there as well. These times are still exceptional and thus he is essentially unbeatable for the current crop pf 200m runners, but to drop all the way down to a 19.19, I think he would have to make 19.4s a regular occurrence for him, perhaps even 19.3, and that remains to be seen. Usain Bolt by comparison, after his world record clocking, then has times of 19.30s, 19.32s and 19.40s as his next best times, making his 19.19 a reasonable outlier, as is Lyle’s 19.31 to his 19.46 and host of 19.5s times.