Usain Bolt

Usain Bolt: Nine Point Five Eight

On 16 August 2009 in Berlin, Usain Bolt ran 100 metres in 9.58 seconds - the largest single improvement to the record since electronic timing became mandatory, and a mark still standing today. Four days later he took the 200 metres in 19.19. He was twenty-two years old, he had a curved spine that left one leg shorter than the other, and a year earlier in Beijing he had set a world record while visibly slowing down before the line.

Trelawny

Bolt was born on 21 August 1986 in Sherwood Content, a village in the parish of Trelawny, Jamaica, where his parents ran the local grocery store. He attended Waldensia Primary School, where his sprinting was first noticed, then William Knibb Memorial High School, where his cricket coach saw how fast he moved between the wickets and pushed him toward track and field. Early coaching came from Pablo McNeil and Dwayne Jarrett. He turned professional in 2004 and, from 2005, worked with Glen Mills, the coach who would remain with him for the rest of his career.

A Two-Hundred Runner Who Did Not Want the Hundred

Bolt's early identity was as a 200-metre specialist. In 2007 he broke Don Quarrie's Jamaican 200-metre record, a mark that had stood for thirty-six years, with 19.75. That same year he made his 100-metre debut at the Vardinoyiannia meeting in 10.03, an unremarkable time for a man who would soon own the event. On 31 May 2008 in New York he ran the distance in 9.69 seconds, a world record, and arrived at the Beijing Olympics three months later as the fastest human being ever timed.

Beijing, 2008

He won the 100 metres in 9.69 with his arms spread and his chest thrown open metres from the line, an act widely treated at the time as arrogance. His own explanation was flatter than the criticism: "I was slowing down long before the finish and wasn't tired at all. I could have gone back to the start and done it all over again." Of the celebration he said: "I wasn't bragging. When I saw I wasn't covered, I was just happy." Four days later he took the 200 metres in 19.30, another world record, and became the first person to hold both marks simultaneously since electronic timing became compulsory. He added a third gold in the 4x100 relay in 37.10 alongside Nesta Carter, Michael Frater and Asafa Powell.

Berlin, and Everything After

Berlin in 2009 remains the outer edge of the sport: 9.58 and 19.19, both still unbeaten, plus a 150-metre world best of 14.35 set in Manchester the same year. His measured top speed of 12.32 metres per second - 44.35 kilometres an hour - is the fastest ever recorded for a human being. At Daegu in 2011 he false-started out of the 100-metre final, the only real failure of his prime, then won the 200 in 19.40 and anchored a world-record relay of 37.04. In London in 2012 he ran 9.63 for an Olympic record, 19.32 in the 200, and 36.84 in the relay, becoming the first sprinter to defend both individual titles at consecutive Games. "I'm now a legend," he said after his seventh Olympic gold. "I'm also the greatest athlete to live." Moscow in 2013 and Beijing in 2015 brought three more world titles apiece. In Rio in 2016 he completed the triple-triple: three sprint golds at three consecutive Olympics. His Olympic career finished with a perfect record in finals.

The Asterisk and the Ending

In January 2017, retesting of Nesta Carter's Beijing sample returned a positive for methylhexanamine, and the Jamaican quartet was stripped of the 2008 relay gold, cutting Bolt's total from nine to eight. He called the prospect of handing back the medal heartbreaking, and pointed out that he had never failed a dope test himself. His farewell championships in London later that year were bleak: bronze in the 100 metres in 9.95, ending a four-year unbeaten streak, and a torn hamstring in the relay final that dropped him on the track while he was still trying to reach the line. He retired in 2017 with eleven world titles, including four in the 200 metres, more than anyone in history.

Why Usain Is Called a Genius

The honest answer is that Bolt's case rests on physiology and skill, not intellect, and the record contains no serious claim otherwise - nobody quoted about him uses the word, and he did not use it himself; he claimed to be a legend, which is a different assertion. What is genuinely anomalous is the shape of the man. At 1.95 metres he was built the wrong way for sprinting, since tall athletes are slow out of the blocks, and he had scoliosis severe enough that his right leg was half an inch shorter than his left. He converted the disadvantage into a mechanical one by covering the distance in fewer strides than anyone he raced, and by staying relaxed at a level of effort that visibly wrecks other sprinters. Stated precisely, the skill consists of holding form and rhythm while generating more force per stride than the field, and doing it in Olympic finals with a perfect success rate.

The counter-case is that his event asks almost nothing in the way of tactics, judgement or invention. There is no reading of the game and no decision-making under uncertainty; there is a gun, a lane and ten seconds. If the word belongs to Bolt at all, it is because his margins were not incremental. 9.58 was not a refinement of the record but the largest leap it had taken in the electronic era, and more than fifteen years on nobody has come near it.

After the Track

Bolt was IAAF World Athlete of the Year in 2008, 2009 and 2016, a four-time Laureus World Sportsman of the Year, three times BBC Overseas Sports Personality of the Year, a holder of Jamaica's Order of Distinction from 2008, and a Time 100 honouree in 2016. A statue of him was unveiled at Jamaica's National Stadium on 3 December 2017. Before Rio he had named his ambition without embarrassment: "I want to be among greats Muhammad Ali and Pele." Retirement has not been uniformly kind. In January 2023 more than 12 million dollars vanished from his account at the Kingston firm Stocks and Securities Ltd in a fraud for which a former employee was charged, and as of February 2025 he had received no restitution.