??

[DJG]

?

[Randy Treadway]

Re: Examining The 4 x 100's Completion Rate

So what do other countries with consistently successful handoffs in international competitions, do differently in preparation?
(I know, it's probably a state secret guarded by all those country's intelligence services, which they won't share with the CIA :lol: )

Do they simply have better psychiatric advisors? Is it all in the head, not in endless practices?

[j-a-m]

Re: Examining The 4 x 100's Completion Rate

So what do other countries with consistently successful handoffs in international competitions, do differently in preparation?

Most countries don't have runners that have a chance in the individual sprints. Because of that they can spend more time preparing for the relay.

[dfj]

Re: Examining The 4 x 100's Completion Rate

hye

as i said in another thread....it's in the correct "set-up"... it takes one practice.

three years ago while coaching in a foreign county (no it wasn't Jamaica) i took three decathletes, did a one afternoon session.. legs.. 2-3-4... they went to a club competition.. added a sprinter (first leg from the blocks) who was not even in the country's top 10 in the 100m..and ran 40.58 in 55 degree temp and wet conditions...

We (coaches) make it difficult, it doesn't "fit" the athletes natural "feel" because it is set-up wrong AND THEN we blame the athlete...

dfj

[Mighty Favog]

Re: Examining The 4 x 100's Completion Rate

This analysis fails to mention that other countries, excluding Jamaica, must use their exchanges to make up for lack of foot speed if they are to have any chance at a medal.
They must attempt riskier exchanges.

I wrote that article. While this may be quite true, the data set I have does not show that correlation. The essential problem for those countries is that you can't medal if you don't take chances, but you can't medal if you don't get the stick around the track.

I sure wish Drummond was like Van Commenee, who has said he'll resign after the Olympics if the team performance is not good enough.

I also think it's foolish to believe the Jamaicans are incapable of goofing up an exchange. I also think their coaches are quite aware of that and adequately prepare to avoid it.

[ATK]

Re: Examining The 4 x 100's Completion Rate

We (coaches) make it difficult, it doesn't "fit" the athletes natural "feel" because it is set-up wrong AND THEN we blame the athlete...

I agree with this. Handoffs are not easy, but they really are not that hard. Coaches bring un natural and many times, unnecessary structure to the relay.

On the other hand claiming that it only takes one practice. Then going to a meet and executing perfectly is more luck than anything.

[dfj]

Re: Examining The 4 x 100's Completion Rate

hye

yes maybe i "over stated" but it did happen..

and it wasn't a matter of "luck" the three that did the practice knew, based on how we set the exchanges up, that they would be "close" no matter what..

i didn't see the result/race but they said they were not "perfect" .. but were able to "slow" slightly, outgoing or drive harder with the incoming... to make the exchange happen close to mid zone.

they did have competition.. one of the other relay had two of the country's top sprinters, plus a top junior, but had poor hand offs..

work with the athletes "feel" not against it.. work with the science not against it…

dfj

[Powell]

Re: Examining The 4 x 100's Completion Rate

So what do other countries with consistently successful handoffs in international competitions, do differently in preparation?

Polish national teams do all training camps as a group. That's at least a couple of months every year that they spend practicing handoffs, as opposed to a few days for the Americans.

[ATK]

Re: Examining The 4 x 100's Completion Rate

So what do other countries with consistently successful handoffs in international competitions, do differently in preparation?

Polish national teams do all training camps as a group. That's at least a couple of months every year that they spend practicing handoffs, as opposed to a few days for the Americans.

A couple of months a year? Do you mean a couple of days every month?

[Powell]

Re: Examining The 4 x 100's Completion Rate

A couple of months a year? Do you mean a couple of days every month?

No, I don't. Training camps, especially warm weather training in the winter, will normally last 2 or 3 weeks at a time, during which time they will be practicing handoffs every day. And they do a few of those every year.

[norunner]

Re: Examining The 4 x 100's Completion Rate

@DJG: There were two canadian teams in the race who ran 38.43 and 38.59. According to an interview the 38.02 race wasn't even perfect, they think they could have run faster.

Regarding practice: The german relays had mandatory training camps in April in the US and two weeks in july. Considering they have been doing this for several years now, they have had little success at world championsships, DNF both in 2009 and 2011. They did however win medals at the last two european championships against other teams with faster individual runners.

The german women also had similar mandatory relay camps and still managed to screw up the race in Weinheim. So even all the practice in the world doesn't guarantee success.

[norunner]

Re: Examining The 4 x 100's Completion Rate

[Even with a sub-38 Germany will not likely medal in London. But I would guess that they would go for broke and really try to nail their exchanges in the hope of beating the odds.

There has only been ONE 4x1 race ever where a sub 38 wasn't good enough for a medal, that was Osaka 2007. On paper Jamaica, US and Trinidad (maybe even St. Kitts & Nevis) should go below 38 seconds, but i would bet a lot of money on the fact that at least one of those three will screw up, leaving the third place wide open to a lot of teams. Osaka 2007 was also the last time both the US and Jamaican relays managed to finish the race.

[26mi235]

Re: Examining The 4 x 100's Completion Rate

I see that Germany's men's 4x1 broke their national record on Friday night (38.02).

“I can’t even understand it myself,” Reus told Leichtathletik.de. “For a run like that, absolutely everything has to be just right. I have flirted with dipping under 10.20 before, but a time like that surprises even me.” Behind Reus, Unger clocked 10.20, Jakubczyk 10.25 and Kasenkow 10.31.

10.09 + 10.20 + 10.25 + 10.31 = 40.85- 38.02 = 2.85

pretty good on the exchanges!

Was this done against competition?

This [individual marks - X = Relay Mark] is the dominate metric, but it is an inconsistently appropriate one. If all of the sprinters are great starters, then this is very good, but if all of them are poor starters (but one), then the relay provides an immediate gain of a several tenths of a second. Also, the top teams have specialist in the 100 and they work their training very hard and they race at a high level often. Thos on a team evn as good as Germany are rarely so practiced at the 100, have many fewer top-level attempts and the marks are from secondary (slower) tracks (the number of peaked attempts on fast tracks are many fewer).

Also, the difficulty of handoffs goes up rapidly with speed, so that what can be easily done at 40-43 seconds (as is often cited for high school and youth teams, except in many cases we are talking as much as 50 seconds) does not really apply to running 37 seconds. For instance, the exchange zone is effectively 10%+ shorter, as is the acceleration zone, and the time interval for the exchange is shorter. Further, the extreme level of effort is higher as these guys can get more out of their body and thus the body is under more stress. The German case, aside from the issue of good/poor starters is the most relevant case but for the US to get it so 'good' we are talking about a mark that is close to 37-flat and there is a difference between that and 38.02.