Word: sprinters
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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...experts think humans can get faster still. Half a century or ago or so, we didn't believe a human could run a 4-min. mile - until Roger Bannister proved us wrong in 1954 when he ran it in 3 mins. 59.4 secs. At the 1936 Games in Berlin, sprinter Jesse Owens won the 100m gold with a blistering time of 10.3 secs - today, that's par for junior level speed athletes. We now have better equipment, better training and improved nutrition, along with faster tracks and, crucially, a lot more endorsement money to be made by running as fast...
...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...
...What's the big secret in the Caribbean? "We have some of the best coaches in the world," says Bertland Cameron, a former Jamaican Olympic sprinter. "They're qualified at all levels, in all disciplines. You name it: 100m, 50m, hurdles, high jump. We take every event seriously." The country's sports minister, Olivia Grange, beamed after the races. "We're the sprint factory of the world," she says...
...used to train barefooted in her home neighborhood of Waterhouse, a particularly tough ghetto on the outskirts of Kingston. One of the first things she did after her Beijing victory was grab her cellphone and call her mother Maxine back in Waterhouse. Maxine, a street vendor and former sprinter herself, is outspoken about the violence and police abuse plaguing their community, and she often uses media interviews about her daughter to implore Jamaicans to "put down the guns." After Shelly-Ann's win, she urged them to recognize that "good things can come out of the ghetto. Good things...
...Beckford believes that the very exalted status Jamaica's sprinters have earned the country also acts as a hedge against doping: No Jamaican sprinter today would risk being caught cheating, she believes, because "the national condemnation would be too great...