I think we can say that everyone has track speed if we don’t clarify what kind of track and field competition we’re talking about.
But what about elite sprinting prowess? Actually, that doesn’t occur very frequently. Just because you can outpace your fellow NFL players on a kickoff return or a defensive back who thinks he has an easy pick-6 doesn’t make you a track star.
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DK Metcalf Learns Football Speed Doesnt Equal Track Speed
DK Metcalf, a wide receiver for the Seattle Seahawks, might learn that the hard way this weekend.
Metcalf will be one of 15 men racing in the 100-meter dash at the prestigious Mt. San Antonio College track in Southern California this summer as part of the USA Track & Field Golden Games.
He let his followers know what he had planned for the weekend by sharing a brief video clip on Instagram and Twitter with the date “May 9th” shown on the screen. USA Track & Field provided the missing information on its Twitter feed.
Budda Baker of Arizona was pursued by Metcalf in October, and after stopping what Baker believed to be an easy touchdown, Metcalf made the decision to switch to track. It was the sort of masterful play that will stay with Metcalf for a long time.
Similar to how Benjamin Watson, a now-retired tight end, will always be remembered for his incredible, last-second tackle of Denver’s Champ Bailey to stop a touchdown in the 2006 postseason.
Metcalf’s decision to compete on Saturday against some of the best sprinters in the world, including Mike Rodgers, a member of the 4×100 relay team that won gold at the 2019 World Championships, is fantastic.
Whether he has been training hard over the past several weeks or merely views it as an enjoyable distraction, his participation in the meet is advantageous to track and field.
That is not Meant to be an Attack on DK. After all, it is What it is.
He hasn’t participated in a track meet since his senior year at Oxford High in Mississippi in 2016. Metcalf specialised in the 110-meter hurdles rather than the flat 100, setting a personal best time of 14.89 seconds there. Impressive time—the ninth-fastest among high school students in California that year.
You cannot just decide to try out for the Olympic Trials one day. Particularly if it’s early in the day about two months prior to the event’s scheduled start time.
It’s equivalent to asserting that a person who hadn’t played football since high school five years prior and two months before the 2019 NFL Draft decided they wanted to be a second-round choice like Metcalf.
The USA Track and Field (USATF) has set a wind-legal time of 10.05 seconds for the men’s 100-meter race as the minimal standard for automatic qualification to the Trials. (A tailwind speed of less than 2.0 m/s is regarded as permissible.) 15 American men are now at that threshold or have surpassed it.
The next-fastest men will fill the remaining spots if less than 32 men qualify prior to the start of the Trials. You required a 10.16 or higher to compete in the 2016 U.S. Trials.
Final Words
If Metcalf succeeds in running this weekend under 11 seconds, the entire world will witness something very extraordinary.
At 6-foot-4 and 235 pounds, he is built more like a discus or javelin thrower than a pure sprinter, so if he can run that fast, it will further establish him as a special athlete.
But football speed differs from Olympic-level track speed. Thanks for reading our raticle DK Metcalf Learns Football Speed Doesnt Equal Track Speed.
