Talk:10-second barrier

Mickey Grimes
Grimes may need to be removed from this list at some point as he tested positive for ephedrine just days before his personal best run. (BBC report) However, I'd like to stick with the IAAF's judgements here rather than striking off athletes on editors' terms. Sillyfolkboy (talk) (edits) WIKIPROJECT ATHLETICS NEEDS YOU!  01:26, 19 June 2009 (UTC)

Psychological barrier???
Any source for this? A runner does not go slower because he fears he is about to become the 69th fastest rather than the 71st fastest. I think it is dubious to describe it as a physical barrier, as it is an achievement but not more difficult in nature than any other shaving of a fraction of a performance time. Kevin McE (talk) 17:39, 9 July 2009 (UTC)
 * Here is another source which describes it as psychological. And a coach here refers to the physical and psychological aspects. The sources I read tended to refer to the fact that it is psychological in that those who have not achieved are not taken as seriously by the competition, and therefore suffer from a competitive impediment (through, perhaps, not having as much dedication or belief). It is true that not having broken the barrier is hardly going to make you physically 0.02 slower. However, consider it similar to the psychological effect that is exerted upon: a sports team that is winning but has never won that specific title or league, a team/person approaching a certain record (which is often just an arbitrary point), a sportsperson doing a feat which no one of their nationality has completed. Conversely, in football seemingly average players often move to teams of a high calibre and become world-beaters. The barrier is one of self-belief.


 * Athletics is often a great example of this effect: notice how records are normally broken by only small increments, or may stand for long times even when other athletes are achieving similar feats. Sportspeople often create their own psychological barriers. While genetics and conditioning certainly plays a part, if you think you can't run faster than 10 seconds, then the man who believes he can run 9.50 seconds will generally get the better of you. Sillyfolkboy (talk) (edits) WIKIPROJECT ATHLETICS NEEDS YOU!  13:30, 27 July 2009 (UTC)

I highly doubt that such psychological underpinnings were the biggest factor preventing white men from going sub 10s in the 100m for 4 decades while Africans did it.. Is that the reason why such a higher percentage of black athletes than white can clear the 40" vertical in the NFL and NBA, a disparity which is proven again and again in the combines every single year? Is there a psychological barrier preventing other races from beating Eastern Europeans in competitions of upper body strength? Is it a lack of belief in oneself that prevents a Chinese man from growing as tall as a man of another race? Seriously, people, if we only allowed science to explain things when they are perceived to be non-offensive to everybody, we'd still be following a geocentric model when studying astronomy. Great Danes and Chihuahuas are the same species, but they have vastly different attributes. Believe it or not, this stuff applies to people, too, and it's not limited to just melanin deposits in the skin. Have these differences led to exaggerations, profiling, and stereotypes that have divided and hurt people in the past? Of course, but don't go around insulting everyones' intelligence by telling them the sky isn't blue. Ignorance is not the solution to race problems. Information and acceptance work much better. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 71.232.48.192 (talk • contribs)
 * The psychological element is not discussed in that manner. Still, if that is your argument, then you should consider why you removed the paragraph that states "biological inheritance [is] the greatest influence". It is biology, not race, that matters. In the most obvious terms: a "white" man with biological characteristics that allow for particularly fast sprinting will almost always run faster than a "black" man who is not well pre-disposed to sprinting. It is a poor extrapolation to apply the talents of elite players to a general populace – elite sport is itself a biased mechanism, as it only deals with people who have strong athletic qualities and does not evaluate those with average or poor athletic qualities. SFB 21:44, 25 October 2011 (UTC)

Most of the modern western world is familiar with, and in fact, has been inundated by the notion that all races have exactly the same chances to be born with any given attribute, with the exception of skin color and other purely cosmetic variables. Many people discover early on how convenient and unscientific this perspective is and tacitly retain their own opinions that more accurately reflect the way the world operates, living in fear of being accosted by a mob of uppity suburban white folks should any stereotype, even a positive one, escape their lips. This particular instance of censorship keeps some poor company, if you take a moment to remember all of the other cases in human history where the truth took a back seat to some carefully prepared message meant to maintain order. It's not a good precedent that has been set. Does having black skin make you jump higher and run faster? No. Like you said, you have to dive a little deeper into genetics and biology to find why the two attributes are correlated. But the point is that they are correlated. Yes, a great white runner is probably gonna be faster than a black slowpoke. Similarly, a quick, slender golden retriever might be able to outpace a greyhound who was born with stubby legs. But don't sit there and tell me that the average retriever can keep up with the average greyhound. With 40 years of seeing the same mark eclipsed by one race but not by another and the same phenomenon occurring with jumping and sprints at pro combines where peoples' jobs rest on the accuracy of those measurements.. don't tell me it's a coincidence. No, melanin levels in the skin don't cause anything we're talking about, but for people to deny the *correlation* in any shape, form, or fashion is just silly and insulting to anybody with two eyes and a cerebral cortex. Don't you get it? I hate being lied to. It's just that simple. The fact that people get so incredibly butthurt when someone says that the average person of race "X" is more "Y" than the average person of race "Z", even if it's the truth, is the problem. I'm not some white supremacist. I'm Mexican/Nicaraguan and I love statistics and facts and numbers. It's so ridiculous when people inject their emotions and social commentary into a data set collected and compiled by people who have no agenda except to measure accurately. Correlation doesn't imply causation, but that doesn't mean you just suddenly say there's no correlation. I'm not trying to extract any revelations from anyone or change their perspective on race or social strata or anything like that. If you'd like to be diplomatic and inoffensive at all times, I have no problem with it. If a pc type said to me "yes, there is a correlation between race and running speed, but there's more to it than that and why does it really matter anyway?".. I would be fine with that. It's just no fun to have a discussion if one party is operating outside the confines of reality.

Merge with 100 m article ?
I think that this article should be shortened and merged with the regular 100 metres article. Furthermore, I think that spelling out the entire list of sub-10 sprinters is rather silly, especially since, at some point in the future (maybe even within 5-10 years), the list will be so long that it will greatly dwarf the rest of the article. However, it would still be nice to note that X number of sprinters have broken 10 sec, and maybe some other nice facts. Mipchunk (talk) 09:48, 5 August 2009 (UTC)
 * I don't see how the list is too different from, say, List of winners of the Boston Marathon. That list too is increasing at a rate of four athletes a year indefinitely. The barrier is a well documented achievement in the blue riband athletics event, and thus constitutes a notable topic. 69 entries over a 41-year history is hardly overwhelming. Furthermore it is no more exhaustive than List of Academy Award winners and nominees for Best Foreign Language Film (a featured list), or the expansive List of Olympic medalists in athletics (men). If the information is presented in an easy to read and accessible format, then there is no reason to remove the information. I think the list is both useful and of interest to athletics readers. However, I do think that a summary should be made on the 100 metres article. Sillyfolkboy (talk) (edits) WIKIPROJECT ATHLETICS NEEDS YOU!  14:18, 5 August 2009 (UTC)
 * Firstly, the argument that "this article exists, so this one should as well" is not a well-founded one, as most Wikipedians would agree. I also have a rather conservative interpretation of WP:NOT, which states that there should not be "excessive listing of statistics". To me, this means that statistics should be used to aid in informing readers about the subject at hand. However, when the article IS just the statistic, I believe that this violates the rule. I realize that Wikipedia has gotten so bloated that I doubt this will ever be changed, but at least I hope to have the ability to influence some things. Mipchunk (talk) 21:55, 6 August 2009 (UTC)
 * The comparison was merely meant as a means to justify the size. Beyond the subjective arguments of "too long" and "not too long", an article comparison is a decent barometer of what is generally deemed too long. Size considerations aside, the article's topic is a verifiable and notable one, and also one that a fair number of people want to read about. I don't think a merger would be of any clear benefit to the reader. Sillyfolkboy (talk) (edits) Join WikiProject Athletics!  23:03, 6 August 2009 (UTC)

Incomplete List
Can someone tag this with the incomplete banner - it is missing several notable sprinters who are sub-10 secs such as Asafa Powell and Tyson Gay Thelostlibertine (talk) 12:45, 14 February 2010 (UTC)
 * They are both listed. The list is intended to note the progression of the 10-second barrier concept. While Gay and Powell's times are significant, they do not have the same position in terms of the historical progression of the barrier as say Lewis, Greene and Bolt do. Sillyfolkboy (talk) (edits) Join WikiProject Athletics!  01:59, 1 March 2010 (UTC)
 * I note the omission of Ben Johnson. Yes we all know he was a famously convicted drug cheat, IAAF has neatly disposed of most of his results, though he still has an IAAF bio listing times from 1987, when he was juiced.  Remember he set the world record in 1987, that was later revoked.  The relevance here is, this list, based on the IAAF source, includes other convicted, suspended drug cheats.  Too many to itemize.  So if they are listed, why is Johnson not?  After elsewhere espousing the philosophy that our lists should strive to be better than any one source, either we should list Johnson, or remove all of the others.  Or asterisk/co-mingle the information from the List of doping cases in athletics.  Trackinfo (talk) 08:44, 24 April 2011 (UTC)

Number of times
I'd like to see the number of how many times each runner has broken the 'barrier'. Now it's only mentioned in the section 'Hand timed marks'. Just read from a newspaper that Asafa Powell has the most of these. 82.141.118.32 (talk) 14:22, 17 July 2010 (UTC)
 * Me again. More info of previous matter. The newspaper was finnish, named Ilta-Sanomat (of Friday, July 16, 2010), and there was article about the upcoming Diamond League Paris Meeting. They claimed that Powell has broken 10 seconds 63 times. 85.217.38.115 (talk) 01:09, 20 July 2010 (UTC)

Dead link
During several automated bot runs the following external link was found to be unavailable. Please check if the link is in fact down and fix or remove it in that case!


 * http://www.national-student.co.uk/pages/sport/road_to_beijing_craig_pickering.html
 * In 10-second barrier on 2011-05-23 01:55:55, 404 Not Found
 * In 10-second barrier on 2011-05-31 20:59:10, 404 Not Found

--JeffGBot (talk) 20:59, 31 May 2011 (UTC)

Yohan Blake
According to this article, Yohan Blake broke the 10-second barrier on 11 July 2009 when he was 19 years and 197 days old, but the referenced source shows that it was on 10 July 2009. I know nothing about thetrack and field athletics so I hesitate to touch the article myself. I would appreciate it if someone more knowledgeable could confirm the information and, if necessary, make appropriate revisions to the relevant articles. (If it was one day earlier and Blake was one day younger, then that will make Seun Ogunkoya the second youngest, but not tie with Blake.)--Dwy (talk) 06:53, 19 November 2011 (UTC)

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Outdated info
Hi. I added the template so readers are aware that some times and dates our outdated. Cjrs 79 (talk) — Preceding undated comment added 11:30, 20 February 2023 (UTC)

Missing Entry
https://www.thepowerof10.info/athletes/profile.aspx?athleteid=41773 https://worldathletics.org/athletes/great-britain-ni/eugene-amo-dadzie-14876047

Eugene's 9.93 is an official time and not in the list 89.197.184.180 (talk) 14:06, 8 November 2023 (UTC)