https://mobile.twitter.com/JasonKoon...Ctwgr%5Eauthor

Cliffs:

- Koon sees DK Mercalf run 100 m@10.36 in his pro track debut
- Koon is impressed and gets asked what he could run
- Koon estimates 10.9
- David Joseph thinks ”zero chance” and offers 5 million bet
- Koon says two million is better for him
- Negotiations are still on
- Bill Perkins gives 100 k freeroll for the attempt

Can Koon do it?

No.



DK is lightning on the field and got dusted by those guys.

It's under 11 seconds. He said he already ran hundred times under 11 when he was on his college years.

Even if he's in good shape he probably gained 1 second not training track and field in 10 years. So must be 11.5+ seconds right now. Very hard work and training to cut almost 1 second inside one year I would imagine.

How old is Koon? And what is his best time? He was track athlete?

Completion conditions are important, as things like gun response time and wind could prove to be important?

Flying start would help him about .3 sec.

Koon will be donating Bill's 100k to a charity he and Bill both like.

Who is David Joseph? The Chairman & CEO of Universal Music UK? Doubt it's that guy.

Koon turns 36 in August.

Questions:

-Fully Automatic Timing?
-Wind-gague? (2.0m/s max applies?)
-Others in the "race"?
-Start via gun?
-Drug test?

Unless this is some sort of angle and he's gonna run downhill or something Koon has zero chance of running 100m in 10.9 seconds.

pointless bet, unless u test someone every 1-2 weeks he can go on anabolics during training than quit before the race still keep the muscle fibres. if he does this its omega easy as in sure win still needs lotss of work. without that no way lol if u take break from sports for 5-10 yrs

If I have this right, Koon ran Varsity Track at a NCAA school and apparently says he ran under 11 seconds a hundred times. If that is indeed the case, and if he has maintained a decent level of fitness since he left college, then I would rate his chance of doing this as very possible.

Anyway Koon has been getting the best of it for over 10 years. If he is betting on something like this he already knows he can do it.

Less than zero

He can get on the best performance enhancers known to mankind and he will still fail, he's 35 years old lmao.

+1

Even with steroids allowed.

Wind would be the best angle

"Run 100 meters in 10.9 seconds or better".

If that is the only condition he needs to satisfy, and based on his previous running performance, he is more than likely to succeed.

Nothing about olympic rules, nothing about standing start, nothing about juicing up, nothing about excluding faster runners to run against, just run 100 meters in 10.9 seconds or better. Actually 10.94 rounds down to 10.9 so it is even easier than that.

When younger I was slow as a glacier. I worked with a former college sprinter (personal best 10.25) who coached me on technique. I went from 13.5 to 12.2. This was when I was 30. The most important technique he taught me was to pace myself. Even good sprinters can go all out for only 50m or so.

It's honestly insane to think at 35 that he could run a 10.9 100m when his PR in college was 10.86.

He could run in 10mph tailwind and he's still got zero chance. The only chance he could run 10.9 is if it's downhill, that's a much better angle. The best angle however would be to wear those running stilts that make you faster.

Cool thread. Just caught this while covering a conference track meet remotely.


Yeah, I'm seeing the same. He ran for Division II West Virginia Wesleyan and his PR was 10.86.

As for "a hundred times," I suppose that's probably true if you count his workouts and maybe legs of the 4x100 relay, but a collegiate sprinter generally doesn't get much more than a dozen races per season for any given event – even if they qualify for the postseason meets. TFRRS only goes back to 2010, and the old WVIAC folded, so I can't find the meet results and rankings, nor can I tell if that 10.86 was wind-legal (one of David Joseph's requirements, as noted in the Twitter exchange.)

But that was then. Of course, the question is... could Koon do it now at his age?

It's certainly possible given that he is a former competitive sprinter, but that would be TOUGH for a guy who hasn't been competing all this time. After all, 10.9 is a helluva time even for people who continued their track careers into their 30s. Metcalf didn't keep doing track, but he has kept in elite shape for the NFL plus, you know, 23 years old.**

• In 2019, there were 26 people in his age division who ran 10.87 or faster in a sanctioned meet somewhere in the world, according to the World Masters Rankings.

• In 2018, 24 people in the world beat 10.90, again for the 35-39 age division. Three of those times did not meet the wind-assistance requirement of the bet.

• In 2017, only 12 beat that threshold, although Justin Gatlin, age 35 at the time, ran a 9.92 into a -0.8 m/s headwind. Freakish. Of course, he was coming off his appearance at the Rio Olympics when he finished second only to some guy named Usain Bolt.

**To illustrate the effect of age, look at the three bullets above. Then consider that among 40-44 year-olds, there have been 35 performances all-time at 10.9 or faster, wind-legal or otherwise. And fun fact, No. 6 on the list is former Chicago Bears Super Bowl Shuffler Willie Gault, who ran a 10.49 in 2005 – about a year after he stopped playing a Secret Service agent on The West Wing.

If he ran a 10.5 or 10.6 i feel a lot better about his chances, 10.86 seems like a 5:1ish dog or higher (possibly much higher) under the same conditions.

Steroids could help but still seems like an uphill battle. Also bear in mind that any injury while training pretty much kills his chances, and it is very easy to get injured sprinting, especially under these circumstances.

The 1.3 seconds from 13.5 to 12.2 are nothing compared to the 1.3 seconds from 12.2 to 10.9 though.

That might be comparable to going from a 3:30 marathon (doable for healthy adult males with some training) to 3:00 (doable with significantly more training) to 2:30 which is absolutely impossible for the vast majority of runners no matter how much they train.

This guy ran 12.81 at 70 years old. Damn.

https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.nyt...d-man.amp.html

Also i think you run into measuring issues if you are not using an official setup.

Agree 100%. I only brought it up because most people think running is a pure physical talent, when there are definitely skills to achieving personal best. I could never have done 10.9 because my body could not generate the required energy to run that fast for 100 meters. If I juiced up, worked out for a year and continued with technique improvements I think I could have gotten as low as low/mid 11s.

I also think age, at least up to about 35 or so, is not that big of a deal so long as the athlete has not been seriously injured. There are many world class sprinters performing in their 30s. Kim Collins made the World Indoor championship at age 40. Justin Gatlin was 100m world champ at 37. I understand peak male physical performance/strength is achieved at the age of 28, on average.

Pokerhero77 nailed it. JKoon can easily do this if the criteria is simply "run 100m in 10.9 seconds" and he angle shoots.

First thing that comes to mind is a running start like in a relay. Usain Bolt's 100m record is 9.58s but Bolt and Justin Gatlin have both run relay splits at 8.65s, a difference of .93s.
http://www.alltime-athletics.com/m4x100ok.htm

Second possible angle is wind. Gatlin's personal best in the 100m is 9.76s but he ran a 9.45s with assistance from giant fans, a difference of .31s.
https://youtu.be/cZcCBY53Hns

Pretty easy to cut off a full second from one's 100m time by using these angles.

Not happening

You just have to pace yourself