Best track sprinter

Lee Povey

Please use the above poll to vote for who you think is the best track sprinter since the 80's to the present, i hope this gets a lively debate going

Lee

Lee Povey

If you are voting it would be great if you would leave a short note explaining your choice.


Lee

velomanct

Anyone know what Nothstien's personal best time was? He has the track record at trexlertown(his hometown track, www.lvvelo.org) at 10.347, but it is concrete, outdoors, at sea level
I read Hubner did 9.9 (was this at altitude?)

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taras0000

I'm relatively young (21), so I can only speak about the guys I have seen race. I picked Gary Neiwand, an Olympic champion, fast, and brash to boot. Had a sublime kick, you could see him accelerate when he was already at top speed, but it was so smooth and so quick. I don't think that there are too many guys out there that, when passing on the last lap in the back straight during a semifinal, have moved up all the way to the blue stayers line and dropped down in front of their opponent.

Also, I think Curt Harnett deserves a bit of a mention. Not as one of the best sprinters, but definitely the fastest if for only one race (9.76 for the flying 200 if I'm not mistaken).

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Taras

drewjc

I dont recall Gary Niewand ever being an Olympic champion.... one of very few races he actually never won. But he was a persoanl favourite of mine along with French rider Florian Rousseau. I admire Florian for the fact that he won the world Kilo champs one year then proceeded to win the sprint the next year i believe. What a champion, in the glory days of track sprinting! Also i think Arnaud Tornant deserves a mention even though he is still reasoanbly young. Anybody who can win three world championships in one year (and four kilos in a row!) has to be a freakishly good rider even if he never wins an olympic gold.

Lee Povey

This might hot the debate up!

I went through all the worlds and Olympics (just the sprint) since 1979 and awarded points like this;

Worlds 1st=3 points
2nd=2 points
3rd=1 point

Olympics 1st=5 points (figured Olympics must be worth a bit more!)
2nd=3 points
3rd=1 point

The results were;

1st Lutz Hesslich 30 points
2nd Koichi Nakano 24 points
3rd Jens Fiedler 21 points
4th Michael Hubner 17 points
=5th Florian Rousseau 15 points
=5th Laurent Gane 15 points
7th Marty Nothstein 13 points
8th Gary Neiwand 8 points
9th Darryn Hill 7 points
10th Frederic Magne 1 points

ed073

Hesslich. no contest.

Close for 2nd and 3rd....Neiwand, Hubner, Nakano, Rousseau.

taras0000

Did he not win the sprint at the '96 Olympics? Must also agree with you on Florian, and Tournant is a beast.

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Taras

ed073

1. Fiedler
2. Nothstein
3. Harnett

Fat Hack

Track World Records:

http://www.uci.ch/english/palmares/...ecord_index.htm

It's a bit confusing to read at first because there's a few different categories: outdoor, indoor, profesional, amateur, Olympic, etc.....

taras0000

I can see why you would have Fiedler and Nothsein up there, but Harnett? Can you explain.

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Taras

ed073

No. That's the order they finished in Atlanta.

Fat Hack

Regardless, people still loved Harnett because he was SO FAST.

He still holds the world record at 9.865