Ferg
undoutedtly you are right for many athletes! – we tend to be cautious at least on our true sprinters that have very fast starts because of the force they can develop from a standing start – although the mecahnics of the leg cycle are slightly different as your rightly point out – there is tremedous effort from the hamstrings with maximum
but a good sprinter will easily do 1.48-1.5s over 10m without blocks – a good rugby player maybe more like 1.55-1.60? that may be a crucial difference
maybe we are overcautious – but we certainly have reduced injury incidence and re-occurence and we did find that generating maximum either early in takeoff or hitting top speed both aggravated injury.
however we do rebuild intensity fairly quickly – cheers mate