The force, power and energy of the 100 meter sprint

TL;DR

This paper models Usain Bolt's velocity, force, power, and energy during his 100m sprints at Beijing 2008 and Berlin 2009, revealing that his physical outputs were unexpectedly lower in 2009 despite faster times.

Contribution

It extends previous velocity analysis to quantify Bolt's force, power, and energy, providing new insights into his performance differences between the two record-breaking races.

Findings

Bolt's maximum force was lower in 2009 than in 2008.

Total mechanical energy produced decreased in 2009.

Power output was smaller in 2009 despite faster race time.

Abstract

At the 2008 Summer Olympics in Beijing, Usain Bolt broke the world record for the 100 m sprint. Just one year later, at the 2009 World Championships in Athletics in Berlin he broke it again. A few months after Beijing, Eriksen et al. studied Bolt's performance and predicted that Bolt could have run about one-tenth of a second faster, which was confirmed in Berlin. In this paper we extend the analysis of Eriksen et al. to model Bolt's velocity time-dependence for the Beijing 2008 and Berlin 2009 records. We deduce the maximum force, the maximum power, and the total mechanical energy produced by Bolt in both races. Surprisingly, we conclude that all of these values were smaller in 2009 than in 2008.