Usain Bolt - Still the Sprinter to Beat
At 23 years of age, Jamaican sprinter Usain Bolt has three Olympic gold medals and three world championship gold medals to his name. Currently holding the world records in the 100m, 200m, and 4x100m distances, Bolt is the man to beat for any short distance sprint in 2010.
In 2008, Bolt became the first man to break the world record in three sprint distances at the Beijing Olympics, where he won the 100m and 200m finals and the 4x100m relay with his Jamaican teammates. The following year at the IAAF World Championships in Berlin, Bolt won the 100m and 200m distances and became the first simultaneous world champion and Olympic champion in the events.
Bolt’s professional sprinting career began in 2004 when he became the youngest sprinter to run 200m under 20 seconds at the CARIFTA Games in Bermuda. Finishing at 19.93 seconds, the then 17 year-old Bolt broke the junior world record at the event.
After being troubled by a hamstring injury for a few seasons, Bolt went on to claim two silver medals at the World Championships in Osaka, Japan in 2007, where he finished runner-up in the 200m and 4x100m relay.
In 2008, the sprinter broke his first world record. On May 31 in New York, Bolt clocked 9.72 seconds with a tailwind of 1.7 metres per second, breaking countryman Afasa Powell’s 9.74 second world record from 2007. It was Bolt's fifth ever professional race in the distance.
Bolt’s undeniable crowning moment in international athletics came on the finest stage of them all, at the 2008 Olympic Games in Beijing. Bolt had been tipped by retired 200m and 400m world record holder Michael Johnson to excel in both 100m and 200m, while other experts had expressed doubt about his lack of experience in professional athletics.
At the start of the 100m Olympic final, Bolt’s reaction time was the second slowest at 0.165 seconds. The tip of his left foot scraped the track as he extended his left leg, causing unnecessary friction, and his left shoe was untied throughout the race.
Bolt also ended the race by slowing down, smiling, and pounding his chest at his victory before crossing the finish line.
Despite all of these conditions prolonging his race, Bolt ran it in 9.69 seconds, improving his own world record by 0.03 seconds. Scientists later estimated that without celebrating and decelerating before the end of the race, Bolt could have finished with a time under 9.60 seconds.
Four days later, on August 20, Bolt ran the 200m Olympic final, breaking Johnson’s iconic 19.32 world record, finishing the race in 19.30 seconds against a headwind 0.9 m/s.
Bolt became the first Olympian to win the short sprint gold medals by breaking two world records. Many thought it was an achievement that could not be repeated, but Bolt, still young, had more in store for the world in 2009.
At the IAAF World Championships in Berlin, Bolt improved his own 100m world record by 0.09 seconds, clocking in at 9.58, 0.11 seconds ahead of his nearest rival Tyson g*y.
In the 200m final, Bolt’s performance was even more notable. Having improved his starting reactions from the previous season, Bolt was off the starting blocks in 0.133 seconds, finishing the race at 19.19 seconds. It was Bolt’s 5th world record to date.
In the Diamond League Meeting in Lausanne, Switzerland on July 8, Bolt finished the 100m race in 9.82 seconds, the fastest time to date this season. Fellow Jamaican sprinter Powell clocked the same time in Rome on June 10th.
The two sprinters, Bolt and Powell, are set to meet in the coming Diamond League Meeting in Paris on July 16th.
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