Run, fast boy, run... meet the Yobot

Thanks to Usain Bolt, we’ve got the sprint bug. But with no standout GB stars we challenged an ex-school sprinter to get back on his marks for Rio and a novice to see if she could learn to sprint in a week. Meet the Yobot, Yohanes Scarlett, and the beginner, Victoria Stewart
Yohanes Scarlett - Pic: Daniel Hambury
Yohanes Scarlett29 August 2012

The big ticket event for this year’s Olympics was always going to be the 100m final — but to the disappointment of home fans, not one Brit was in the running. In fact, the last British Olympian to win a gold medal in the 100m sprint was Jamaican-born Linford Christie 20 years ago — and the last British-born athlete to win it was Scotsman Allan Wells, in Moscow 1980.

Despite Team GB’s plethora of gold medals at the Games, we are still lacking a sprint star who can outrun (and outpose) the likes of Usain Bolt and Yohan Blake. As the American sprint legend Michael Johnson noted during the BBC’s Olympic coverage, we simply don’t have a “sprint culture” here in the UK.

But fear not, Londoners. The Standard is on the case and sent me, a former star school sprinter, out for a week of intense training to see how the best sprinters are trained — and whether I had what it takes to join Team GB at Rio 2016.

When I arrived at the Move Clinic in Acton, I explained to physiotherapist Scott Mitchell — the man tasked with turning me into a sprint king — that despite the glory days of my teens, when I had ran 100m in 12:74 seconds, I was always nudged towards football instead.

Scott agrees that the problem with sprinting in Britain is highlighted by my own story. While I was pushed towards football at school, Yohan Blake, whose first love was cricket, was directed towards sprinting when his coaches noticed his speed.

The BBC documentary Nature Vs. Nurture, which aired before the 200m Olympic final, centred on a theory that the success of black sprinters such as Bolt and Blake could be explained by “Accelerated Selection”, caused through slavery. However, Scott believes other cultural factors need to be considered. “It is hard to argue against that theory,” he says, “but sprinting is the national sport of Jamaica.” And, of course, isn’t the national sport the one all the kids want to do?

If I fancied my chances of being in the running for Rio, I would need to forget football and re-embrace my sprint roots. I also needed to measure my current 100m speed. Surely it couldn’t be much slower than the 12.74 I ran when I was 16, just five years ago, right? Wrong. Mitchell clocked me in at 15.38 — which wouldn’t even see me qualify for a qualifier.

To set me on the road to Rio, I had to spend at least an hour a day running on an anti-gravity treadmill — like Mo Farah uses — to perfect my technique. With that kind of technology at my disposal, I’d soon need a celebratory move of my own: budge over Bolt, move over Mo — the Yobot is on his marks.

On the first day, I was strapped into the space-age treadmill, set at an incline, and made to run for five minutes. It was torture.

Legs wobbling, I looked over to Scott with some pride, believing I had done well for a journo. Wrong again. After bragging to my colleagues at the Standard about being a pretty good sprinter in my teens, it turns out I had spent my life running the wrong way.

Mitchell decided it would be best to focus on technique rather than strength, correcting my poor heel-to-toe form and keeping me (ahem) on my toes. “By improving your efficiency of movement, improving arm action, trunk position, foot recovery and turnover, you can actually improve how you load the connective tissue and use the strength you have more effectively,” he promised. However, when you are clumsy and have wonky feet that refuse to stay in position it becomes a different task.

But after spending at least an hour a day practising with Scott, by the end of the week my feet were finally hitting the ground in the right way — that’s toe first, and with the heel never really reaching back to the floor.

Incredibly, at the end the seven days I had improved by 1.61 seconds — and I ran 100m in 13:78.

Despite my rate of improvement, sadly Scott doesn’t think I’ll make it to Rio. He’s probably right, but hopefully after Bolt and Blake’s dazzling display, Britain might be ready to embrace a little sprint culture of its own. In fact, Scott thinks our own sprinter Adam Gemili could be in with a chance if “Bolt is no longer motivated” come 2016.

Either way, I’m not too downhearted. Gemili might be faster but the Yobot will always be far better at showboating …

CAN YOU LEARN TO SPRINT IN FIVE DAYS? Victoria Stewart reports

Not being a confident runner, my trainer Ian McClelland starts by helping me stretch and teaching me to run short distances. First off, I run for my life and manage 30m in a humiliating 9.3 seconds. Watching the video back, my back is tilted forward, my hips in the wrong place and my feet all over the place.

Clearly I need to change my technique - and my diet: “If you want to be athletic you’ve got to act athletic outside of work out time. Results are decided by 20 per cent training and 80 per cent post training lifestyle,” Ian recommends.

According to him, too many of us run heel first which slows us down and can lead to injury. So instead I begin the barefoot running method, learning to land on the balls of my feet and not lifting them again until my big toes leave the ground. By the end of the hour I sprint 30m in 7.5 seconds.

The next day it’s salmon for breakfast, chicken and potato salad for lunch and fish for dinner. I do hopscotch, triple jumping uphill and downhill runs. Crucially, I take five-minute breaks in between sprints “to give your nervous system a rest. As you’re gaining lots of new muscle fibres, you don’t want to overdo it.”

An hour’s weightlifting (including squats holding a bar above my head) at Ladbroke Grove’s Heart and Soul gym and I wonder if my arms might fall off. It’s swiftly followed by cold beef and potato salad.

By Thursday, my thighs feel dead and I struggle to get under eight seconds. Still, it’s an improvement. More chicken for dinner.

Friday is race day. My legs hurt. I eat bacon, spinach and an apple for breakfast and later a banana. I don’t manage more than eight seconds again which is disheartening. However, it’s been a long week and I know I’ll be capable of sub-7-seconds in time. Can I have a hot bath and some chocolate now?

(Individual training sessions with Ian are £60/hour, ianspirationtraining.com)

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