18 y/o kid Roberto Skyers runs world leading 20.24!!! WHOA

[The Atheist]

Anyone else notice this yet?

Some Cuban kid named Roberto Skyers ran a 10.31 in the 100 meters on March 13th with only a 0.2m/s tailwind, and then ran a world leading 20.24 in the 200 meters the next day with a 1.4m/s tailwind.

He turned 18 in January of this year.

WOW!

Not bad, looks like we better keep an eye on this guy. Damn!!!

[EPelle]

First-year athlete? IAAF bio commences with 2009 season.

[Powell]

Tilastopaja has results for him from 2007 (bests of 10.82/21.65), but nothing last year (injury?)

[EPelle]

Possibly. He has nine results from 2007, nothing from 2008.

http://www.athlecac.org/estadisticas/At ... lete=41417

[The Atheist]

I wonder what kinds of times this kid is going to run in London '12...

Yikes...

[Double R Bar]

He may not run in London in 2012.

[Jon]

According to Tilastopaja, Skyers' times were 10.32/0.8 and 20.42/0.6. And the competition was in Havana, not Camaguey as listed on the IAAF yearly lists.

[gabyandersen]

According cuban newspapers was in Camagüey .
He was born in Camagüey
It was 20.24 new 200 cuban record (before Roberto Hernández 20.37 )
The cuban staff have a hope in a good relay to Berlín ,in the same meeting Víctor González 10.25 and Michel Herrera 10,28.

http://www.jit.cu/home/news.asp?idNews=20540

[Jon]

My mistake, I now see that Skyers' 20.24 came in the heats. I just saw his 20.42 in the final and assumed there was some sort of mix-up with the 4 and the 2.

[gh]

Skyers in good company on the all-time Junior list:

19.93 Usain Bolt (Jam) 4/11/04
20.07 Lorenzo Daniel (US) 5/18/85
20.13 Roy Martin (US) 5/11/85
20.16(A) Riaan Dempers (SA) 4/07/95
20.18 Walter Dix (US) 6/11/05
20.22 Dwayne Evans (US) 6/22/76
20.23 Michael Timpson (US) 5/16/86
20.24 Joe DeLoach (US) 6/08/85
———Francis Obikwelu (Ngr) 5/29/96
———Roberto Skyers (Cuba) 3/14/09
20.28 Andrew Howe (Ita) 7/16/04
Wind-aided
19.86 Justin Gatlin (US) 5/30/01
20.01 Derald Harris (US) 4/09/77
20.08 Leonard Scott (US) 9/09/99
20.10 Stanley Kerr (US) 5/18/86
20.16 Nickel Ashmeade (Jam) 3/24/08

[eldrick]

20.01 +2.5 Derald Harris USA 05.04.58 1 San Jose 09.04.1977

that looks about archetypical example of a wasted talent

still wouda been wjr by veritable mile with +2.0

that kinda talent shouda gone on to run 19.90-basic by '80

[The Atheist]

I'm surprised Gatlin wasn't considerably faster in the 200m, considering his not-very-wind-aided 19.86 and his sicko 100m ability. One would think he would have dropped a 19.5ish time at some point or another with optimal conditions or something, but he was usually a good half second slower than that. Weird.

edit: for some reason I thought the wind speed was barely over 2.0, but I couldn't remember, so I looked all over google, and now I can't even find what the windspeed was on Gatlin's windy 19.86 from 2001....

[gh]

Not nearly as wasted a talent as the guy above him on the windy list!


(Harris, as I recall, didn't have the grades to get into a 4-year school, and the U.S. system being what it is--particularly in those amateur days--that was the death knell for his career)

[eldrick]

edit: for some reason I thought the wind speed was barely over 2.0, but I couldn't remember, so I looked all over google, and now I can't even find what the windspeed was on Gatlin's windy 19.86 from 2001....

+4.0

& of course he ran wind-legal 19.86 year+ after

apparently he switched pretty much full-time to 100m after college & just ran 200s off just 200 training - but did include a 20-flat wc win in '05 in shitty weather - musta been at least in 19.8's in good weather in a 1-off

pretty good off just 100 training !