Modern Vs Old fighters.

Thanks for that! What a speedster he was…definitely ahead of his time

 

Firstly, Bolt was timed a 8.65 FAT in a 100 split while Hayes was timed at 8.7 handtimed. The conventional conversion is .22 seconds more for the hand time.

Hayes was a beast but relay splits, especially in the 400 meter relay, are somewhat imaginative as a measure between sprinters. For one, the exchange zones are not always well marked so the beginning of the 100 meters to be measured isn't always correct. More importantly, no two sprinters are going to cross that first mark at the same speed. A guy who gets the baton well back in the exchange zone will be going a lot faster, getting a far faster flying start. Also, the quality of the exchange greatly effects the starting speed of the 100 meters being measured. Sprinters, especially US sprinters, don't take practicing exchanges as a priority but a great exchange will drastically lower your split. They happen sometimes and don't others.

Lastly, given that the 400 relay is rarely run as a national elite team and even more rarely run with someone alleging to be measuring splits, we are dealing with a small sample size here. All in all, Bolt is an extreme outlier of talent. His 9.58 is a full HALF SECOND faster than Hayes ever ran under auto-timing. Factor in better tracks, longer career, better supplements and training... that still doesn't make up a half second in the 100.

 

Hayes ran that with a pair of borrowed shoes (nowhere near as advanced as modern ones) on a cinder track.
That makes it pretty impressive to me.

 

No doubt it is impressive but it's a spurious time. The 10.06 he ran in the chewed-up first lane for the 100m final is more legit and reasonable. Hayes was a great talent. As a truck nut, it would have been nice to have seen him stay in the sport until his latter 20's.

 

Not my area of expertise so I accept what you say. I was simply repeating the “record” we at my school were told about way back in the 70s when we were practicing our relay exchanges.
My athletics coach would go on and on about the super quick American Bob Hayes from the 1960s and that unofficial relay time of 8.6 seconds or whatever it was. And of course his superb 10.06.
And on checking recently I saw that the 8.6 was still unbroken. But of course hand held devices would obviously be nowhere near as accurate as the technologically superior timekeeping of today so it stands to reason there would be some discrepancies

 

Agreed! Extremely impressive!