Usain Bolt

Usain Bolt set the 100 m and the 200 m world records four days apart in the same city. In August 2009 he clocked 9.58 and 19.19 at the World Championships in Berlin [3] [5]. In its record preview for the 2025 World Championships in Tokyo, World Athletics still listed both as world records [4].

From cricket to the track

Bolt was born on 21 August 1986 in Sherwood Content, a village in Trelawny parish, Jamaica [1] [2]. As a boy he cared more about cricket and football than running. His cricket coach encouraged him to try athletics seriously [1].

The switch paid off quickly. In 2002, at 15, he won the 200 metres at the world junior championships [2]. The race was in Kingston, and the win made him the youngest male world junior champion in any event [2]. His Olympic debut was less happy: at Athens 2004 a hamstring injury held him back and he went out in the 200 m heats [2]. Six years later he was an Olympic champion.

Beijing 2008

Bolt's first 100 m world record came in May 2008 [2]. At the Beijing Olympics that August he lowered it to 9.69 [3]. Days later he won the 200 metres in 19.30, another world record. It beat the 19.32 that Michael Johnson of the United States ran at the 1996 Atlanta Games [9]. Jamaica's 4x100 m relay team, with Bolt in it, also won in world-record time [2].

That relay gold did not last. In January 2017 the International Olympic Committee disqualified the Jamaican team because teammate Nesta Carter's sample from the 2008 Games had tested positive for the banned stimulant methylhexaneamine [7]. Bolt had to relinquish his medal [7]. That is why the official count is eight Olympic golds, not nine [1].

Berlin 2009: 9.58 and 19.19

A year after Beijing, Bolt took 0.11 seconds off his own 100 m record. On 16 August 2009, in Berlin's Olympic Stadium, he ran 9.58. Tyson Gay finished second in 9.71, a US national record that was still more than a tenth of a second behind [3].

Four days later came the 200 m final. Bolt won in 19.19, again 0.11 faster than his Beijing time, and 0.62 seconds clear of the field [5]. The stadium clock first showed 19.20 before the result was corrected [5].

The false start in Daegu

Not every final went to plan. At the 2011 World Championships in Daegu, South Korea, Bolt was disqualified from the 100 m final for a false start. Under the IAAF rule of immediate disqualification, a single false start was enough to be thrown out [6]. Yohan Blake won in 9.92 [6].

Bolt came back to win the 100 m and 200 m at both London 2012 and Rio 2016 [2]. That made him the winner of the Olympic 100 m at three consecutive Games [1]. In London he set an Olympic record in the 100 m, and in Rio he became the first person to win both individual sprints at three straight Olympics [2]. At 1.96 metres he also upset an old belief that very tall sprinters are slow out of the blocks [2]. His own view of the race is on record with the IOC: "I stopped worrying about the start. The end is what's important" [1].

A painful last race

Bolt chose the 2017 World Championships in London for his farewell, and it ended badly. On 12 August, on the anchor leg of the 4x100 m relay final, he pulled up with a hamstring injury and went down on the track while Britain took the gold [8]. He left the sport with 14 World Championship medals [8].