Here's a little food for thought on Matthew Boling's season: I know a bunch of people here are disappointed in what he produced or rather did not produce. Very valid considering how talented he is combined with what appears to be a very intense work ethic. I've heard a lot of reasons as to why he has underperformed here including, but not limited to: bad coaching, too many events, bad technique, lack of experience, losing his edge/psychological reasons, and more. Some here have gone as far as to theorize that perhaps he has seen his best days. Well I dont know what's inside Matthew's head, and its ultimately up to him to decide how to interpret his performances and how to respond next year on the psychological side. But on the physical side I would not be too worried about him. Here are some stats taken from the worldathletics.org website for the 2021 season:
1. Matthew Boling: 40 total races including 7 400s and 7 long jump competitions jumping 3 times each
2. Terrance Laird: 37 total races including 1 400
3. Andrew Hudson: 25 total races including 1 300
4. Noah Lyles: 17 total races; 0 400s
5. Kenneth Bednarek: 14 total races; 0 400s
6. Erriyon Knighton: 12 total races including 1 400
If we assumed each 400m race was the equivalent of two races, and three runs down the runway for the long jump counted as say 1.5 races then the above totals adjust to the following:
1. Matthew Boling: 57.5 total races
2. Terrance Laird: 38 total races
3. Andrew Hudson: 25.5 total races
4. Noah Lyles: 17 total races
5. Kenneth Bednarek: 14 total races
6. Erriyon Knighton: 13 total races
Matthew Boling competed 1.31 times more than the three athletes representing the US in the Olympic 200m combined!! I think these numbers show that he was completely overworked. The "muscling" began if I'm not mistaken by the time of the NCAA indoor nationals at which point he had already competed in an adjusted 25 races and over a short period of time. When he became national champion he was already heading down. He needed rest. Lots of the best sprinters start their season with a 400m race - no problem with this at all. But 7 400s and 7 long jump competitions on top of everything else is not going to make you run fast. Sure, week in week out he scored points for Georgia, but I dont know how anyone could have expected him to last the season when looking at the output - and of course he didnt. Muscling occurs in beginning sprinters when they simply havent learned out to run correctly yet. In the case of an experienced sprinter it happens when the athlete feels like they are running slow and so they start to try and force their body to run faster. In other words, Boling knew he wasnt running as fast as he could or should have been. As a comparison look at Terrance Laird. He finished 2nd to Boling at the indoor Nationals and then went on a tare outdoors posting the top times in the world over the next several months. However, by the time NCAA preliminaries and regionals rolled around the 19.8s turned to 19.9s and by the time US nationals came around all he could manage in the final was a 20.15. Laird ran the second most number of races at 38 and he still fatigue through the college season. Boling had 19.5 more adjusted races than Laird!
Boling will be back strong next year I would imagine. Hopefully though he is managed better. He should be treated as a future Olympian and not a College Point Scorer. Had he and Laird been handled better the US might have been represented by both of them and Lyles.
