Word: slowness
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: during 2000-2009
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
Elite sprinters are not, however, simply improved versions of the average Sunday runner. They are physiologically different. For example, a typical human has in his skeletal muscles an equal balance of "fast-twitch" muscle fibers (quick contracting, easily fatigued muscle tissue that generates high power) and "slow-twitch" fibers (the muscle mass that uses oxygen - aerobic, rather than anaerobic), on which endurance runners rely. Slow-twitch muscle can contract for long periods of time with less fatigue, which helps some distance athletes run up to 60 mi. per day. Sprinters legs are genetically blessed with 70% fast-twitch...
...block, but he separates himself at the end of the race, when "he's still able to turn his legs over fast enough with high power," says Ed Coyle at the University of Texas's Human Performance Laboratory. "He overcomes his average start and just doesn't slow down, as others do, in the last 30 to 40 meters. He's able to relax and coordinate his longer legs...
...absolutely certain that generations from now, we will be able to look back and tell our children that this was the moment when we began to provide care for the sick and good jobs to the jobless; this was the moment when the rise of the oceans began to slow and our planet began to heal; this was the moment when we ended a war and secured our nation and restored our image as the last, best hope on Earth...
...strides lengthened, his face churned. He left nothing on the straightaway, and if he seemed to slow a bit at the end, it was because he had used everything up. The time of 19.31 seconds flashed on the scoreboard. He beat the world record by .01, a hundredth of a second (the winning time was later lowered to 19.30). Michael Johnson's sacrosanct, 12-year old 200m mark, 19.32 seconds, set in the '96 Atlanta Olympics, was wiped off the track. Bolt became the first runner since Carl Lewis in 1984 to win both the 100m and 200m races...
...back room [at the Bird's Nest]. You know how sometimes you watch something, but then you really don't get a whole perspective until they show the instant replay in slow motion? That's when I got that wow feeling. I watched the race, but I couldn't see what he did. It just looked like he won by a lot. Then they showed the replay, and I saw him look around a couple of times and hit his chest. I started thinking, those are hundredths of a second he could have lost. I was in awe. Because...