Athletes all over the world are gathered in London to participate in the Olympic Anniversary Games. In the meantime, researchers came to provide insights regarding the unbelievable speed of Usain Bolt, the fastest man alive. In a paper that was published on July 26 by the European Journal of Physics, researchers presented a mathematical model that can explain how Usain Bolt performed in the Berlin championships.
The physics of sprinting
Usain Bolt is considered to be an athlete with a one-of-a-kind talent. After winning the 2009 World Championships in Berlin, one of the greatest performances that the world would remember for a long time, scientists started to look into how Bolt achieved his 9.58 second world record in the Word Athletics Championship 100-meter sprint.
Bolt’s 9.58 seconds is still the current world record. Researchers explained that Bolt was able to achieve the time with a velocity of 12.2 meters per second which is almost equivalent to 27.5 miles per hour. They also explained that Bolt was able to exert an average force of 815.8 newtons during the sprint.
How to win Bolt-style
Sprinting cannot be defined simply as running super fast. There are a lot of elements and factors to consider for a sprinter to run a winning race. For instance, achieving the maximum speed for a sprinter depends much on the horizontal force the athlete could generate. One more important factor that affects the speed of a runner is the drag. According to scientific studies, if the drag of the runner is equal to the horizontal force generated, a faster time cannot be achieved.
Bolt’s superhuman abilities
The researchers determined that Bolt has the ability to come out of the block with nearly one g of acceleration (One g is the acceleration due to gravity at the Earth’s surface). This is not at all that surprising since the human leg is capable of handling a load of one g. It all depends on the amount of training poured into the legs of an athlete to achieve this capability. However, it was a surprise for researchers to find out that Bolt is able to maintain a constant level of horizontal force.
Bolt is also known to be a relatively slow starter. Combined with his ability to maintain a constant force Bolt eventually reaches his a maximum speed at the critical time. According to data gathered and interpreted, Bolt’s acceleration is at zero in the middle of four to five seconds from the starting line and then reaches a maximum velocity of 27.3 miles per hour until the end of the race.
Another interesting finding is the mechanical power Bolt is able to produce. The Olympian is able to generate a total 3.5 HP in less than one second. Given the fact that Bolt is able to sustain a constant force all throughout the race, researchers computed that he typically generates an average of 11.6 HP.
The strength to fight drag
With a huge frame of 6 ft 5 in, Bolt is considerably less aerodynamic than other athletes. Jorge Hernandez of the National Autonomous University of Mexico said that the drag coefficient they calculated clearly depicts another awesome ability of Usain Bolt. Hernandez determined that only 7.79% of Bolt’s total force is used for motion while the remaining 92.21% is used to fight drag.
Caption: Usain Bolt
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