Athletics · 2008 · Beijing, China
9.69 Seconds, Slowing Down
A 21-year-old Jamaican breaks the 100 metres world record while celebrating before the finish line, and still nobody has run it faster in that style since.
9.69s (world record)
Time
0.20s
Margin of victory
21
Age
Usain Bolt had only switched his primary focus from the 200 metres to the 100 metres a year earlier. In the Beijing Olympic final he was already clear of the field with twenty metres to go when he began to slow, spreading his arms and thumping his chest before he crossed the line.
The clock still stopped at 9.69 seconds, a new world record, run with his shoelace reportedly untied and without a fully committed final stride. Analysts have long argued he left several hundredths of a second on the table by easing up early, an almost unheard-of thing to do while simultaneously setting a world record.
Bolt would go on to run faster still, 9.58 seconds at the 2009 World Championships in Berlin, but Beijing 2008 is the race most remembered: the moment a genuinely new kind of sprinter announced himself to a global audience, with room to spare.
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