After witnessing Usain Bolt and Mohammed Farah add more gold medals to their resumes in dominant fashion, we’re still left hanging on the edge. The biggest question of all still lies dormant: Who would emerge victorious if these unchallenged legends faced off?
In 2013, it appeared that this burning question would finally be answered; after Farah raised the issue himself, and challenged Usain Bolt to an epic race that just might attract a larger televised audience than any Super Bowl, NBA Finals, or World Series ever would.
Bolt accepted Farah’s challenge, with the exception that their race must either be 600 meters or 800 meters, and no longer than that.
Only now, three years later, it appears that they burned all of us, much like they’ve been doing to their competitors all these years. At some point during this three-year period it seems that they must’ve snuck into a graveyard somewhere, and buried their agreement from the public eye. Perhaps second thoughts creeped in; paralyzing their amygdalae with crippling fear, at the terrifying thought that one of their spotless legacies could be tarnished. Complete nonsense of course, no matter who would win between these two, they would both still live on as idolized legends. We must remember though, that the biggest critics in our lives are usually ourselves, and living with a loss to someone who would likely be crowned as the best runner in the world as a result, might be too much for either of them to bear after being accommodated to such dominant success.
Yet here I stand at their digging site, with the unfulfilled agreement unearthed in my scorched hands for all to see.
They couldn’t expect to hide their agreement from the public eye forever. Especially after snatching gold medal hopes away from their opponents with such ease in the 2016 Rio Olympics.
Anyone watching them run during the Rio Olympiad would likely be compelled to see whether the two have ever raced each other, only to stumble upon the fact that they’ve kept us all waiting for over three years now.
I admit that my previous blind ignorance of Track and Field as a sport, kept me questioning why these two legends were never facing each other as the Olympics progressed along. That ignorance helped me trace their footsteps back to this unfulfilled agreement of theirs and forced me to make sense of how this race would go down.
To the naïve eye Bolt and Farah both appear as track runners; however with a deeper look you’d see that there is much more to it than meets the naïve eye, and perhaps understand why they seem to be so reluctant to race each other. They are both runners, but of two contrasting species.
Usain Bolt is a Sprint Racer; ergo full-throttle ahead from start to finish, with no time to spare for conserving energy. This athletic skill that he possesses requires a high percentage of fast-twitch muscle fibers, which fire and contract quickly (using the body’s supply of Glycogen for energy) to propel him to phenomenal speeds within a short period of time (for example: a world record of 9.58 seconds in a 100-meter race). Fast-Twitch muscle fibers tend to burnout quickly though, which is why sprinting races are normally short distances such as 100, 200, or 400 meters. Usain Bolt has earned a gold medal in all three races this year not surprisingly torching the competition uncontested like a cheetah.
Farah on the other hand is a marathon racer which requires runners to pace themselves over long distances until the final lap, or mile, finally arrives. This athletic skill requires runners like Farah to possess a high percentage of slow-twitch muscle fibers, which slowly contract (by using oxygen as their main energy source) in order to help marathoners build endurance that sustains them throughout a race, and prevent burnouts. At long distances such as 5,000 to 10,000 meters (12 to 25 times the longest distance that Usain Bolt races) slow-twitch fibers were an absolute necessity for Farah to possess in order to help him fight his way to a gold medal in both races, even after suffering a disastrous fall in the 10,000 meter race his dedication and endurance is certainly unsurpassed.
So what would a race between Bolt and Farah look like? We must keep in mind that at shorter distances (100, 200, and 400 meters) Bolt would likely outrun Farah. While at longer distances (5,000 and 10,000 meters) Farah would likely outlast Bolt. In such cases a middle ground is needed, and according to research drawn out by Duncan Blythe at Humboldt University of Berlin and Franz Kiraly at University College London; an even-matched race between Bolt and Farah would be at approximately 492 meters:https://www.technologyreview.com/s/537496/machine-.... Given that their hypothesis is correct, this would put Bolt at a disadvantage with their agreed race either being 600 or 800 meters. But Bolt has done nothing but silence his critics over the years, so unless this race actually happens there is no way of truly knowing.
Except will it ever happen? Both Bolt and Farah have concluded their Olympic careers, and have chosen to retire after the 2017 World Championships in London. With that, the chances appear to be dropping substantially. Come on guys, just give us this fantastic race before you conclude your athletic careers. Time is of the essence. Don’t make the same mistake of twiddling your thumbs for too long before facing off like Manny Pacquiao and Floyd Mayweather did. If so, then one of you will be past your prime by the time you race, and the competition will do nothing but leave everyone dreadfully disappointed.
I realize that finding a fair distance to race is a difficult agreement to accomplish between a sprinter and a marathoner, but a promise cannot go on unfulfilled, and a given word must not be broken. Science has already provided the answer for a fair distance after all, so how about it Bolt and Farah?
Give us this race before you end your careers. Maybe as your final race before retiring?
