Christophe Lemaitre- 1st white man to run under 10 secs for 100 metres

[chrisobee]

Not quite in the Usain Bolt class but Christophe Lemaitre became the 1st white man ever to run under 10 seconds for the 100 metres at the French Championship tonight clocking 9.98 ( legal wind of +1.3) .

Ian Mackie of Scotland once ran 9.9997 but official time is only recorded to 100ths of a second. This is presumably for the simple reason that recording times to an accuracy of 1000th's of a second is neither aesthetically pleasing or convincing, no matter how capable technology becomes. Ian Mackie may not agree !

[St Landrew]

I seem to remember Alan Wells managing 9.9 in his career, at some point. Maybe, 1980..?

[St Landrew]

Or is that 10.1..? Bollix, I think it might be the case..!?!

[chrisobee]

Or is that 10.1..? Bollix, I think it might be the case..!?!

 

He ran 10.11 in the heats in Moscow ( a pb I think) and 10.25 in the Olympic final in Moscow 1980.

There is, as you would imagine, lots of debate as to why black athletes are able to run faster. Is it in the genes or somehow are they more likely/able to be cheating by using drugs ? It doesn't help that a lot of US sprinters have tested positive in more recent years, Jamaica is nowhere near as strict in it's approach to random drug testing as say the UK nor of course that both Linford Christie and Dwain Chambers have tested positive for drug use. Christie was essentially retired when testing positive so one wonders why he would bother, Chambers of course suspended though now back running and still around 10.00 in a regular basis. I do believe he is now clean having openly admitted to using drugs, it would be very hard for him to use drugs without detection. Some believe Usain Bolt must be taking some kind of drugs to run such amazing times. My own opinion is that he is clean but tarnished by the legacy of others.