a Bolt and a Bullet

Those who were wondering just how fast Usain Bolt could run if he didn't start celebrating before the end of a race got their answer this week as Bolt broke his own world records in the 100M and the 200M by 0.11 seconds apiece.

Tyson Gay ran the non-tailwind-assisted 100M of his life with a time of 9.71 — the third fastest ratified time in history — and was still clearly in Bolt's wake at the finish line. (The 200M was no contest at all.) In fact, had Bolt run through the line without looking for Gay and easing up slightly, his time might have been even faster.

With a few years left before he hits his prime, how fast will Bolt eventually go?



When talking about Bolt's feat at lunch one day, and trying to put the 100M race into perspective, I noted that it's like running over the length of a football field (100M is about 109 yards) in under 10 seconds. Two questions then arose: First, how many of us could do it in under 20 seconds? (The jury's still out on that one.) Second, what would Bolt be like in the NFL? Would he just make a fool of everyone?

Not necessarily.

The NFL actually has a history of sprinters joining its ranks as running backs or wide receivers. Even those who never ran track in high school, college, or international competition have shown world-class speed, especially when considering that running in football rarely involves going in a straight line all the way.

Take, for example, one legendary figure, as described by TIME:

Among then was Bob (Bullet) Hayes, who won the gold medal in the 100-m sprint at the 1964 Olympics in Tokyo and recorded what some observers consider the top time ever achieved by a human with an 8.6 split in the 4 x 100-m relay. (Relay marks are faster than regular sprints because runners receive the baton while in motion, enabling them to accelerate quicker.) Hayes later parlayed his speed into a career as a wide receiver for the Dallas Cowboys; his passing in 2002 prompted one columnist to remark that Death must have tied his shoelaces together to catch him.

When looking for some videos of Hayes to link, I stumbled upon the YouTube holy grail — a video for which the comments are an actual intelligent conversation! (Compare that with the comments on the Bolt videos, which are a mind-numbing mix of inanity, sheer idiocy, and outright racism.) The debate that the commenters are having is whether or not Hayes could best Bolt's time on a modern surface, with today's equipment and advanced training techniques (and drug testing).

Whatever would happen on the track, from watching Hayes on the gridiron, it's clear that he had the ability to run routes, make the catch, shake a tackle, juke a defender, and get into the endzone — something one can't be certain that Bolt would have.

So, which would be more likely, Bolt breaking the 9.4 second barrier (I won't even pretend that 9.5 is out of his reach), or scoring an NFL touchdown?