Human body and technique, the idea of progress, and usain Bolt’s 100m dash in Beijing 2008: an interdisciplinary analysis of a paradigm changing performance

Resumo

Through history, numerous events have taught us that the beliefs we once thought to be certainties were in fact mistaken, due to a lack of information. Still, in many occasions we tend to fall into the same cycle, believing that this time around we are actually on the right side of things, and that our newly acquired knowledge is a part of the progression to the betterment of humanity. The present research simply intends to present an example from the popular world of sports that shows how little we actually know about some of the closest things to us, such as our own bodies or the technique required to run straight, and how one single case is enough to disregard decades of assumed scientific certainty. This interdisciplinary approach to Usain Bolt’s case only attempts to shed some light over our ignorance, and specially in our pretentious assumptions regarding human knowledge. This humble approach is absolutely necessary in our quest to improve education in our society.