From Steve Sailer’s site:
The New Yorker recently inquired “How Fast Would Usain Bolt Run the Mile?“, only to find out according to his agent that “Usain has never run a mile.”
As my old coach used to say, sprinters are born, not made. When I ran track for Bucknell, the rest of the team used to openly mock what they called “the sprinter’s jog”, which is considerably slower than a normal walking pace. Of course, if you were facing another sub-25-second 200-meter repetition as soon as you finished jogging 100 meters, you’d jog pretty damn slow too.
Two of my roommates used to run the occasional 5k, and some girls once asked why I never ran one with them. After they stopped laughing, one of them pointed to a nearby lamp post and said:
“See that lamp post?”
“Yeah.”
“He can get there faster than you would believe. Now see that one?” He pointed to one a little way up the hill.
“Yeah?”
“You can beat him to that one. Also, he won’t make it that far.”
In fairness, I did run a 5k once a few years after that. I barely finished in front of a woman who had just given birth three days before. I don’t recall the time, but I do remember vomiting afterwards.
UPDATE: Very disappointed to see Alison Felix robbed of the 400m gold. She clearly won that race; diving at the finish line should not be permitted in sprints or dashes as it is much too dangerous. She’s been my favorite sprinter for years, as her style is very pretty and graceful. She’d have won gold in the 200m too if she hadn’t been injured at the qualifiers.