The most logical conclusion to me is that Kim Collins under acheived for some reason in his younger days, and didn't reach his true peak. Whether he had injuries, inferior training, or whatever, this just makes the most sense. No athlete has a higher potential speed at 40 than they did at 26.

He won 100m at Commonwealth games age 26, and won 100m world championship at age 27.

It's fair to assume his training improved, which is the natural progression in virtually all sports. But it's obvious he was not injured to the degree that prevented his competing at a world class level.

I don't think there will be any million dollar bet, if it happens it will be 100-200k for charity like the last few messages indicated.

Just recalled now I've read an article about the fastest football players, when Bruno Henrique was the fastest ever recorded on top speed passing Bale and a couple of others, and it was equivalent to around ~10.9 seconds on the 100m.

It was in 2019 in the Libertadores and he's 30 now so he was 28-29 years old at the time. He even gave a few headaches to Trent Arnold in the final against Liverpool, which is a very fast rightback.

That’s on the field, usually even with the ball. Doesn’t really have anything to do with running 100m on a track.

The guy I mentioned earlier was a soccer player who switched to the 100m in his mid 20s. His PR is 10.22.

The training getting better is the only explanation then. Or, his technique was flawed. Or possibly PED's. It has to be far less than 1% chance that his body somehow had greater potential at 40. It's pretty much biologically impossible. In any case, incredible achievement and crazy outlier fact that's fun to learn.

Probably relevant that performance curve before/after personal peak does not drop off at same rate for everyone.

And that personal peak is not reached at same age for everyone.

lots of variables. If it was on a college level course with NCAA official timing or better and he has to come in at 10.90 or lower then I'm with the zero chance crowd. If he thinks 10.999 is still a 10.9 then maybe.

I'd put $10k on him not doing it.

and none of this two years to train BS. with in two weeks of the bet being made.

His carve-out for no injury seems pretty significant, considering that the possibility of getting relatively injured seems like one of the main barriers to doing this. Kind of like "oh I could go X speed on a nascar track, but bet is off if I crash the car."

An injury would be similar to what is called "no contest" in horse racing or boxing.

I don't know how anyone could possibly think that running a 10.94 or 10.99 would be a win in a 'run 100m in under 10.9 seconds' bet. Those times are above 10.9 seconds.

Just type jason Koon high school track. His PB in college was 10.86 and 22.38

in the That opportunity came following a hip injury. The injury meant Koon could not compete for the first time in his life. At about the same time, a college friend introduced him to online poker.

“I went to West Virginia Wesleyan College on a track scholarship. During the winter indoor season my sophomore year, I suffered a nasty hip injury during a race. I ended up needing to have surgery to have it repaired,” Koon said.

Koon’s injury and college tuition left him more than $100,000 in debt. With $7,000 in his bank account, Koon quit his job to take a shot at being a professional poker player.

Hip injury, age , few other things as a former sprinter my self no shot In hell he breaks 11 seconds.

If you use a clock that registers only tenths of a second.

I read the opening post to read "10.9 or better" not 'under 10.9'

like Jerry, he might need to go before the gun

He was sandbaggin bro

Have you never heard of the long con

Watch the movie 7 days to Vegas with Vince Van Patten, maybe they are getting ready to snap someone off.

I rarely browse this forum these days, but this post caught my eye.

I don't want to say things are impossible, but I'd say there's a 0% chance of Koon running under 10.9 in the 100m. I'll eat a nice-sized hat if he ever does.

I'm the same age as Koon; I was a 100m guy at a Division I school and then coached a few years at a DI school in the late 2000s. Running under 10.9 isn't something you just *do* - it's different than training for a mile/marathon where *maybe* you have a shot at improving when you're older. I won't go super deep into it, but just physiologically I don't see any way a 36 year old man who hasn't competed in over a decade and isn't training for it *every single day* gets remotely close to this time.

Hell, I was a lot faster than Koon and I'm honestly still in pretty good shape (same height/weight as I was 15 years ago and, if anything, I'm stronger than I was in college for sure and know how to actually train/run better now) and I'd be shocked if I could run under 12 seconds right now. I don't even know if I could go under 13 without pulling a hamstring :-D. If I was training every day for the next six months. . .maybe I'd hit mid 11s but highly doubt it.

tl;dr - where can I get in on this bet?

I know, which is why it seems significant. The whole point of betting that someone can’t do something that requires a lot of training is that it’s very easy to overdo it and injure yourself. For example, if we assume that he has to train very very hard to get there (setting aside the debate of whether he can even with a lot of training/if he’s angle shooting), then if he puts in the very difficult training, maybe he gets injured 80% of the time, makes it 15% of the time, and fails 5% of the time. He gets to free roll for a million dollars, because if didn’t get to no contest if he gets injured, he’d have to avoid getting injured (and not be able to train as hard). Maybe with the lower level of training it’s 40% chance of getting injured, 10% of making it, and 50% failing (pulling these numbers of out my ass)

Not to mention the fact that if you start getting towards the end of the challenge and it becomes clear you can’t make it, maybe Koon pushes himself a little too hard on purpose and gets injured to make it a no contest

You do know that these are essentially the same thing....

If an injury gets you out of the bet, then it's just a freeroll. You can always injure yourself on purpose if you know you won't make it, and you don't even have to do anything odd. Just train too much, too hard. At 36 this will lead to certain injury.

Running start changes it by about 1 second. So equivalent running 100m in 11.8/11.9 secs. Seems doable

It reminds me of the people who were certain that you could never spend a few days isolated in a bathroom without having permanent psychosis.

Maybe they were thinking of the film Saw

dark and isolation are challenges for ppl who identify strongly with/live in their thoughts ... someone experienced with meditation or psychedelics would borderline enjoy the peace and quiet ... an average person though is at risk of finding themselves in a very unstable state though, and psychosis is less a permanent state and more of a clinging to an unfounded fear or set of fears/beliefs ... a good example of an unfounded fear is worrying that an middle aged guy is a secret track star ... I've changed my mind twice about this but it feels overwhelmingly like he has no shot at this from the trend of qualified opinions rolling in

/thread