Dont know if we will be capable of that...but about the evolving argument
I dont find that implausible at all...dont know if he would beat bolt...but he could be winnig medals in big events....keep in mind that owens with his long jump mark of 1935 would do very well in modern competions..didnt look at it al lot, but for example in London 2012 he would get the bronze medal...so image him with modern footwear, modern surfaces, food suplements, and better training (I mean he even had a job while competing if im not mistaken) that would represent a huuuge boost to his marks.
No, Owens fastest legal time was a 10.3, not a 10.2. Even back then they understood wind adjustment (which is why I cheekily alluded to Boling's 10.00).
Now bear in mind that Owens was
hand-timed. There's a reason we don't compare those old hand-timed 40 times. Just look at the Olympic swimming events. There's a difference in the reaction times of 0.2s in
Olympic-caliber athletes. Meanwhile, those same hand timers can track the person into the finish, so there is no reaction delay. As I discussed in past threads, as we know from sports like swimming which have measured this, the average time gained is usually 0.15-0.30 seconds. So Owens time is more like a 10.5.
Now keep in mind this debate isn't about Owens being afforded modern training or nutrition or drugs. That Russian lady did what she did with the same sophistication of training that everyone else had in her time. No, in this hypothetical, we're talking about snatching Owens from his time, and transporting him to a modern track, then throwing on modern running shoes. That's it.
You believe that ~10.5 becomes a 9.58? Get real. Just think about it. His raw time is barely faster than the
women today. He's closer to the women than he is to the boy's USA winning national high school 100m time on any given year.
