Sprints vs Distance

[trackloyalist]

Europeans seem to crave middle distance races over sprints' just the same way the average fans of North and Central America crave the reverse. On the Grand Prix circuit, "rabits" are used to induce record breaking performances in distance races.

Excluding drugs et al, why don't we deliberately moist the mondo tracks to acheive similar goals in our so called "sprinters region"? Afterall, a wet track has proven to produce fast times.

What's your take?

[gh]

Re: Sprints vs Distance

Has any such thing ever been proven? I do recall that in the early days of synthetic football fields they used to say that the footing seemed to be improved when wet, but those were surfaces that were meant to mimic grass and have "blades" whereas today's tracks are engineered to give maximal rebound and minimal adhesion.

[EPelle]

Re: Sprints vs Distance

Bring back Innocent Egbunike, the unofficial "official" rabbit in the 400m!

[DentyCracker]

Re: Sprints vs Distance

I don't know about wet tracks being proven to produce fast times. That's a commonly held belief among some track enthusiasts here in Jamaica. Anecdotally it seems so, but maybe the fact that at the times of the year when track is generally run at the National Stadium, fast times have seemed to occur after rain, may be due to other factors. The water in the track may make it less compressible and thus "harder". The wind may be more favourable after rains. There tends to be a headwind at certain times of the day notably midday to mid afternoon, maybe when rains fall the wind tends to be less. Who knows?