Valeriy Borzov Personal Bests

Валерій Борзов

Assembled for the first time, all the lifetime best races by the legendary sprinter Valeriy Borzov (URS).

60m - Borzov ran twice 6.58 in his career, considered as world bests only, since IAAF started to be officially ratified world indoor records from 1987. The video shows the second one, winning his 6th European Indoor title in 1976. The first one occurred two years earlier, but with a technique that is no longer allowed: starting with only one hand one the ground and carrying the other on his back. Borzov confirmed to me that it was just experimental and the best technique for him was the conventional one. Borzov eventually did his Doctoral degree as a Candidate of Pedagogical Sciences in 1980 on the technical model of sprint start. You can check a short history of the crouch start on my blog (in French http://vazel.blog.lemonde.fr/2016/08/14/pourquoi-les-sprinteurs-partent-accroupis/ )

100m - Sprinters often feel that their fastest race was not the most accomplished one. Surely that's how Borzov felt after this 10.07. After all, he was only 22 and it was just the quarter-finals of the 1972 Olympics. But in the final, he only needed a 80% effort to win according to his own words, and was timed in 10.14 into a 0.3m/s wind. His 10.07 should have been hand-timed in 9.9 (or maybe 9.8 ), which would have matched the world record, but since there was an electronic apparatus, the time was rounded down to the nearest tenth, hence, 10.0, according to the old (strange) rule. The 9.9 world record was equalled earlier that year at the US Trials, by Eddie Hart and Ray Robinson, who went to miss the quarter-finals in Munich due to an outdated timetable. This surely made Borzov's task easier, and controversy remains whether he would have beaten the Americans. In the 4x100m relay in Munich, Borzov was opposed to Hart in the anchor leg. Hart was timed in 9.21 to Borzov 9.25 (Gundlach, Olympische Analysen 1973, but the Ukrainian shut down before the finish line as US lead was out of reach. However, I managed to recently review two videos of the US Trials where no electronic timing was available (only time difference between runners as read in photo-finish), and found that Hart was no slower than 10.08, with Robinson 0.02 sec behind. Borzov's 10.07 was still intrinsically better, as the wind was nihil in Munich, while there was +0.9 for the Americans in Eugene. The 100m world best electric time was then 9.95 at the Mexico 1968 Olympics by Jim Hines, who also had the low-altitude best with 10.03 (wind +0.8 ).

200m - While Borzov is better known to be a great starter who rarely took part to 200m races in his career, his 20.00 personal best is probably his best accomplishment. It remained a low-altitude world best for 8 years. This time no Americans were missing and he proved to be the fastest man on earth. His electric half-race splits were 10.40 and 9.60, the fastest of all the finalists, showing a fine balance of speed and endurance. This feature was also found in his training bests of 14.9 at 150m and 31.8 at 300m, showing a speed-endurance index of 2.0 (300m - 150m*2), very close to the model for a 20.0 sprinter (Rachmanov, Legkaya Atletika 1977). Yet, Valeriy Borzov remains the greatest sprinter who never held an official World Record.

Видео Valeriy Borzov Personal Bests канала PJ Vazel