Run-Down Forums

Conway · Posted: Fri Jan 10, 2003 9:25 am Post subject:

Lots of stuff ... Lets see ... I agree with Justin's WC order ... Monty is good but Mo is great with Chambers rising ...

I am intreagued by your data X-King ... I have tons of races on tape from 1983 til current ... And actually I have every 100 final in the Olympics from 1900 ... Would love to know how you analyze them as your data seems remarkably on ...

And I too would love to know how to get official race data of any kind ... This could turn out to be a most informative thread .....
_________________
Conway
Speed Thrills

pierrejean · Posted: Fri Jan 10, 2003 9:50 am Post subject:

X King post in nearly all English language T&F forum since sevral weeks and delivers tons of suspect split times, mixing biomechanical/kinematic analysis published in specialized books or magazines, and his 'own' analysis. The problem with his analysis is that 1) he doesn't want to tell his methods, 2) give analysis saying that he did them by himslef, while actually, it is plagirism, 3) his analysis are obvioulsy inaccurate, as he gave some analysis for races which has been already analysed by high speed films (200 frames/sec), and the comparison between his results and actual results show big differences.

About the Griffith-Joyner analysis in Indianapolis Trials'88, i posted those split times in Charlie Francis forum and IAAF forum, from my analysis of video tapes at 25HZ (camera in front of the finish line) and 30HZ (camera in front of the 60m line), giving 2 different points of views. I search runner's speed from the exact number of frames between each interval form marks drawn on the track, and stride length and frequency analyse (speed is the product of stride length and stride frequency). All this give an analyse reliable at 0.01sec.
This procedure was described by Vittori (Pietro Mennea's coach) in several publications about Valeriy Borzov's race in München'72 Olympics.

Track fans shouldn't be disturbed by false scientific analysis, because that gives a bad idea of this sport. All we need is accuracy.
About plagirism, X King martin.senior or any nickname you have, i want to say that my analysis are a long, sharp and expensive work, watching tons of tapes of my collection but also reading T&F, coaching and scientific publications in any language in any time, to get a more and more clear idea of what is speed world in T&F.
Thanks.

pierrejean · Posted: Fri Jan 10, 2003 10:03 am Post subject:

For all readers, to my knowledge "official" analysis in major championships sprint events (100/200/400m) were held in:

* Olympic Games 1972 (200m only?), 1976 (200 and 400 only), 1984 (200 and 400 only), 1988, 1996 (speed curve only for 100m), 2000 (female 400m only?)

* World Championships 1983 (200 and 400 only), 1987, 1991, 1993, 1995 (200 and 400 only), 1997 and 1999 (although 200m and 400m analysis in Sevilla weren't reliable at all!)

* World Cup 1989 (female 200m only?)

* European Championships 1978, 1986 (200 and 400m only), 1990 (400m only?).

* European Cup 1991, 1997 and 2001

GDR used to search split times in nearly every meet in GDR soil, USSR did a few too, but it was "secret" documents. Other countries did analysis for some domestic events.

Dan · Posted: Fri Jan 10, 2003 10:37 am Post subject:

Whew, this thread sure heated up over night! Surprised

Justin, here is the link for the IAAF forums:

http://www.iaaf.org/community/forums/index.htmx

Last time I looked, it was mostly juvenile banter. Not nearly what you'd expect from the site of the sport's official governing body...

I didn't notice Charlie Francis had a forum on his new site. That could be interesting. I'll have to browse through it...

http://www.charliefrancis.com/board/philboard.asp

Regarding '03 WC predictions, I seem to be in the minority in believing not all 3 of the big dogs will be ready to run at quite that level. One of them is bound to blow up, in my mind. Until I see what kind of form Greene opens the season in, I have a hard time making any predictions... Of course, he opened in pretty good form last year. Confused

Dan

Justin · Varsity Joined: 08 Oct 2001 Posts: 312 Location: London

You are quite right about the big 3. A list of things which could mess them up is endless:

injury (in training or in the race)
distractions (Tim's head)
Kim Collins (can he step up from consistent sub 10 to sub 9.9?)
Justin Gatlin (just how good is he?)
Mark Lewis-Francis (I place no limits on this young man)
Darrel Brown (ditto)
Ato Boldon (can he return? bet HSI is hot this winter...)
Francis Obikwelu (time to deliver on that talent...)
etc

On the IAAF forums, look in the Champions Corner section - tons of very technical stuff, including extremely detailed split breakdowns by the same pierrejean who posted just above and our young tyro X King.

Justin

Dan · Posted: Fri Jan 10, 2003 3:52 pm Post subject:

There do seem to be some good topics in that particular forum. Not as much trash talking as I recall from my previous visit, but I'm not sure which of the forums I looked through at that time. One in particular that I found amusing:

http://www.iaaf.org/community/forums/ListThread.htmx?lngCatId=&ForumID=140&TopicID=13416

On a related topic, I've been told in private that Marion and Charlie have been spotted training in a warm weather environment and were very annoyed at being identified. Sorry, I've been sworn to secrecy, so I can't share exactly where...

And to pull off the extremely rare triple play of related topics ... also some very interesting threads in the Charlie Francis forums linked in my previous message. Particularly the "Super Club" area.

Dan

Conway · Posted: Fri Jan 10, 2003 4:51 pm Post subject:

Has this turned out to be a very interesting thread ... Have checked out both of the other forums before ... But not since those threads were started ... Will have to go back and take a look ... IAAF often not what you would expect it to be ...

As far as the top 3 making it to the 100 final, it is veryrare ... Or at least it has been ... We haven't got 3 favs to a 200 final since 96 ... Same for the 100 - and then Linford crapped out ... If someone isn't there I would expect it to be Tim ... He is the one who historically has not been there each time when it counts ...

Gatlin I see being the big dog in the 200 .. Needs a better start in the 100 ..

Collins doesn't seem strong enough ...

Ato has had too many down seasons in a row ...

Obikwelu needs to go 200/400 ...

Darrell Brown a little young yet ...

Now MLF ... He will be just off the big three ... And if one makes a mistake he will be there to clean up !!!

Still wanting to get my hands on some official analysis - no one has yet said how to get it ... And why so few hundreds in that list pierrejean ??? Mostly 200s and 400s bieng analyzed ...
_________________
Conway
Speed Thrills

pierrejean · Posted: Sat Jan 11, 2003 3:28 am Post subject:

Conway

I don't know why so few competitions were analysed... I've noticed that in swimming competitions, split times, velocity changes, stroke length and frequency are common studies in every major championships year after year. I wish it was the same for T&F! All we have are split times from distance races, and sometimes we get the chance to get biomechanical studies for sprint/jump/throw events.

There are several ways to get those split times during 100m races: high speed films (over 50 frames/sec), photo-electric cells or laser guns. The problem is that those methods give different results sometimes.
In Athens'97 World Championships, 2 methods were used: laser apparatus placed behind the start line and operating at 50HZ and measuring the distance covered by each runner every 0.2s until the finish line; and video cameras operating at 50HZ placed on the upper stands at the 30m, 50m and 60m lines. Laser and video measurements were compared and there was 0.10m +/-0.06 (n=10) average difference between the 2 methods! for women! 0.10m represents accuracy of 0.01ths at a 10m/s speed.

Video analysis with 25 frames/sec (regular tapes to record TV footage) allow a at worse a 0.02 accuracy, assuming that a frame is 0.04 and we can easely divide each frame in 2 parts. Divinding each frame in 4 parts requires a sharp and trained eye, and the analyse of stride length and frequency to verify the speed data.
We are still waiting for X King explanations about his methods, and i personaly need apologizes from him for having given in this forum my video analyses (i posted in other forums) under his name.

X King, please give your sources, and above all, don't say that's your analysis when they are actually mine. Everyone is welcome to use my data, but the least is to quote my name as the author, not yours...

X King · Posted: Sat Jan 11, 2003 6:45 am Post subject:

PJ,this is a personal apoligy from the one-and-only X King.I'm sorry about the plagirism and all.I'm SORRY!! I hope that that 'speech' can wrap this up,and we can get back to being 'pals'.And my 'methods' of Video-Tape Analysis footage that I give,is counted in frames a second.Ranging from 25 to 87 frames/s.I metioned that I counted in frames/s on a recent e-mail to this forum that I did last night,but obviously it didn't go through.
The only reason that I use your(PJ) splits analysis's and Video-Tape analysis's,is because I am currently compiling a file of 'Stats',but they are not mixes of other splits,they are Thorough, Thorough , Thorough, Thorough searches through the Net,Video-Tapes,PJ's info. and other info.
This time they are 'legit'.At the moment I have 168 A4 sheets,full sheets of 'Stats' that I have collected. But one more Question,I know that this is rude,but I'm going to ask it anyway,how old are you PJ???
X King

pierrejean · Posted: Sat Jan 11, 2003 7:06 am Post subject:

Thank you X King, i'm 22 yr.

X King · Posted: Sat Jan 11, 2003 7:21 am Post subject:

Thanks PJ.So we both many years left,you to become even better(But you too damn goo already!!)and becoming the 'Greatest Statician Ever',and me,being 13yrs old,I have many years left to get some more reliable equipment,and more understanding of matter.So that in time I can rival you and your 'title'!!!
X King

pierrejean · Posted: Sat Jan 11, 2003 7:25 am Post subject:

My aim is not to be the greatest statistician ever, and i have no rivals...
I just want to understand things better.

X King · Posted: Sat Jan 11, 2003 7:51 am Post subject:

Great reply.That got me thinking!
Very interesting hmm...
X King

Justin · Varsity Joined: 08 Oct 2001 Posts: 312 Location: London

Well I'd like to apologise too, for everything bad I've ever said, especially to Conway...

I'm 33 so it warms my heart to see you youngsters getting on so well!

I now have a lot more confidence in X King's stats as well; it's good to know the methodology and I don't think there's any doubt about his commitment to accuracy. It's good to have outed pierrejean as a sprint expert as well - no more lurking sir, we expect your active participation in keeping Conway and Dan in line on the Run Down sprint forums...

Justin

Dan · Posted: Sat Jan 11, 2003 9:56 am Post subject:

Indeed, I'm hoping to see pierrejean and X King with registered user accounts soon! Smile

pierrejean, I can't say I'm surprised by the relative inaccuracy of the laser method you described. Lasers themselves can obviously be very precise, but hitting a moving target from behind seems a very unwise choice. For one thing, why from behind??? That's measuring the wrong part of the body... And regardless if in front or from behind, lasers are typically focused on a single point and would not be able to recognize [unwanted] angling of the torso in mid-stride or the sprinter swerving in the lane, all of which could make the measured point not the furthest forward.

I would have thought they would somehow put the lasers to the side of the track -- much like a video camera or the start sensors in sledding -- to measure exactly when a point is crossed. Of course, that would still need visual confirmation that you're getting the torso and not a pumping arm... Also tough to see through competitors in adjacent lanes unless you have a higher view angle.

Dan

Discussion Forum

Share the Love!

What's New