I found an interesting piece about sprinter Usain Bolt over on the London Times site. It talks about how humans might just be approaching the limit of what we are physically able to do. The Olympic 100-meeter champion lowered his record-setting time by taking 0.11 seconds from the mark that got him the gold in Beijing in 2008 with a new world-record time of 9.58 seconds this year.
“I think it will stop at 9.4 but you never know,” Bolt told the Times.
To give a little perspective about how far we've come, the world record in 1912 was 10.6 seconds.
Greg Whyte a Professor of Applied Sport and Exercise Science at Liverpool John Moores University was quoted in the story as saying that he believes humans will reach their athletic potential in 2060. Can that be?
With the wide spread use of supplements, and even illegal drugs, are there really any limits to what the human body can achieve? At some point, there has to be a line that the human body just won't be able to cross. When that will actually come, who knows.
Check out Bolt setting the record:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3nbjhpcZ9_g
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Usain Bolt is a freak. I thought it was crazy enough to see Kobe jump over a car and Ochocinco out-sprint a horse.
ReplyDeleteI don't know enough about the human body to guess where it will max out, but it is damn fun watching sports.