Dwain Chambers to race Kevin Levrone in LA

Ready for some fun and entertainment? The event is being billed as 'Put Up or Shut Up'. In recent issues of Flex and Muscular Development magazines, Pro Bodybuilder Kevin Levrone issued a challenge to all world class sprinters to race him over 40 yards. Kevin beleives he is the 'Worlds Fastest Human' and wants to prove it. Dwain Chambers (#2 in the World and 2002 European Championship Gold Medalist and record holder at 9.87 for 100 meters) has accepted his challenge and the agreed upon distance will be 60 meters. The match race will be with blocks, spikes and electronic timing. The event will take place at 2 PM on December 11, 2002 at Orange Coast College in Costa Mesa, CA . Costa Mesa is in Southern LA near Newport Beach. The announcement of the upcoming race will be in the next issue of Flexonline.com Any predictions as to who will win? Dwain's time? Kevin's time? Should be a wild and whacky event!

No doubt in my mind: The track athlete will kick the bodybuilder's ass so badly this will be revealed for the joke it is. Especially over sixty meters. Most people would probably be surprised to learn that even sprinters need a lot of stamina. - Even if Levrone is as fast as he thinks he is, I find the very notion that he might have the stamina to remain competive after fifty meters patently ridiculous. I strongly suspect the average college spinter would kick his ass over sixty meters; even comparing him to a world-class performer like Chambers is an insult to track atheletes everywhere.

Will? Did! Go look at the film.

It would have been more interesting if it were a top Olympic lifter.

I thought they were good for 30-40 yards.

Very true.

This is all guess work but the camera seemed to be at roughly the half way point and as they ran past it, Levrone seemed to be about 3-4 meters down. Extrapolating to 60 meters he may have lost by about 10 meters(since Levrone would have surely struggled to keep form and the fact that Chambers with probably one of the worst starts of top class sprinters has tremendous pickup which he uses to pull away in most races) which is a huge loss in the world of sprinting where athletes usually win by hundredths of a second. However, to be even that close to world class sprinter is a massive achievement and he has to be ranked as damn quick! Mind you if he decided to switch to athletics he'd have to watch out for all that drug testing

Look at the final time: 6.64 seconds over 60 yards? If Chambers had gone any slower, he would have been going backwards. - Anyone able to run a sub-10 100m would have beaten that time by a full second, which translates into ten meters. If Chambers had gone flat out, Levrone would have lost by roughly half the distance of sixty yards. Hats off to Chambers for being a good sport and not completely humiliating Levrone.

P.S. Levrone seemed uncoordinated and slow coming out of the blocks; I was a little surprised by that; I gave him better-than-even odds at being competitive over the first four or five yards.

3 things. 1. There are plenty of sprinters who could get within 10 yards but they'd still have to be fairly fast - if you can't manage a sub 12 second 100m then you can forget it. 2. All credit to Levrone, considering his size and the fact that he won't be training for speed, he is still probably faster than 90% of the 16-35 year old population. But you are spot on when you mention his ego, there was no way he would have beaten Dwain Chambers. If not then it was so obsurd, I am beginning to think that he must have issued the challenge with his tongue firmly in his cheek. 3. Never mind Ben Johnson, Tim Montegommery is faster(I think both he and Chambers will be heading towards the high 9.6s in the next couple of years)

Yeah he was'nt going flat out but was'nt the race over 60m and not 60yards? I can't believe he'd run 6.64 over 60 yards unless he was running blindfolded, backwards and with both legs tied together. 6.64 over 60 meters however is a world class time and less than a quarter of a second off the world record.

Sprinters have huge stride lengths which only look normal because they are running against each other. It takes Joe Public for you to realize that. I think I'll count how many strides they take the next time I watch a 100m race so that I can work out how long their strides are. Also is it only me but when you look at the long jump record of nearly 9 meters, it is absolutely a bloody long way!

Does this mean he has some talent (because he can stride that quickly), or just poor running form (because he'd be better off taking longer strides at the expense of stride rate) ? The reason I ask is that distance runners have pretty similar stride rates (about 180/min) and the main thing that varies with speed is stride length. So for example, I stride at almost exactly 180/min whether I'm doing 8:00 miles on a long easy run, or 6:00 min miles in a race. This is true of experienced casual runners, as well as elite athletes. Beginners typically have lower stride rates, which is one of the reasons that their running looks really clumsy.

I agree that his stride is quicker than the beginner, but I'm wondering if he'd be better served by a similar stride rate to Dwain's.

I'm curious as to whether there's much variation in the stride rates of serious sprinters.

By 'beginner runner', I just mean someone who hasn't done much (running) training. Like those guys you see in the gym plodding along on the treadmill with attrocious running form at slower than 8 minute mile pace. Kevin appears to be a beginner runner (Flexonline asserts that it was the first time he had ever raced with blocks)