What is Usain Bolt's 100m world record?
Just a few hundred thousand metres per second slower than an actual lightning bolt.
The 10-second mark is widely seen as a key barrier in the men’s athletics 100m event, a benchmark for the elite sprinters to surpass.
Over 180 men have run quicker than 10 seconds in the sport’s premier sprint race since the barrier was first broken by the American star Jim Hines at the 1968 Olympics.
None, however, have been faster than Usain Bolt.
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In fact, no other sprinter has been within even a 10th of a second of the world record set by Jamaica’s sprinting sensation well over a decade ago, even in the years since his retirement in 2017.
But just how fast was Bolt at his peak, and what is the closest others have come to his world record?
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What is Usain Bolt’s 100m world record?
The men’s 100m running world record, set by Jamaican sprinter Usain Bolt at the 2009 World Athletics Championships in Berlin, stands at 9.58 seconds.
Bolt’s lightning-quick performance that day in the German capital shaved 0.11 seconds off his own previous world record from the Beijing Olympics the previous year, and remains the 100m world record today.
The closest any other athlete has come to the world record was when the USA’s Tyson Gay ran a 9.69 in Shanghai in 2009, equalling the third-fastest time in history alongside Bolt and later fellow Jamaican Yohan Blake, who ran the same time in Switzerland three years afterwards.
As well as the world record, the second-fastest performance of all time also belongs to none other than Bolt, courtesy of his 9.63 at the London 2012 Olympics.
Blake, who has announced that Paris 2024 will be his final Olympics, is the only active runner in the top-10 all-time performance list.
Fastest 100m sprints of all time (at the start of Paris 2024)
- 9.58 (WR) – Usain Bolt (Jamaica) – Berlin, Germany, 2009
- 9.63 – Usain Bolt (Jamaica) – 9.63 – London, UK, 2012
- 9.69 – Usain Bolt (Jamaica) – Beijing, China, 2008
- 9.69 – Tyson Gay (USA) – Shanghai, China, 2009
- 9:69 – Yohan Blake (Jamaica) – Lausanne, Switzerland, 2012
- 9.71 – Tyson Gay (USA) – Berlin, Germany, 2009
- 9.72 – Usain Bolt (Jamaica) – New York City, USA, 2008
- 9.72 – Asafa Powell (Jamaica) – Lausanne, Switzerland, 2008
- 9.74 – Asafa Powell (Jamaica) – Rieti, Italy, 2007
- 9.74 – Justin Gatlin (USA) – Ad-Dawhah, Qatar, 2015
Meanwhile, the most recently achieved top time was thrown down by American sprinter Fred Kerley in June 2022, when he ran a 9.76 to join his compatriots Christian Coleman (2019) and Trayvon Bromell (2021) as the sixth-fastest 100m runners ever.
Since then, the fastest anyone has been was the time of 9.83 run by the UK’s Zharnel Hughes and American Noah Lyles in July 2023, which ranked them joint-15th on the list of all-time fastest performers in the event.
Fastest 100m sprinters of all time (at the start of Paris 2024)
- Usain Bolt (Jamaica) – 9.58 (WR) – 2009
- Tyson Gay (USA) – 9.69 – 2009
- Yohan Blake (Jamaica) – 9.69 – 2012
- Asafa Powell (Jamaica) – 9.72 – 2008
- Justin Gatlin (USA) – 9.74 – 2015
- Christian Coleman (USA) – 9.76 – 2019
- Trayvon Bromell (USA) – 9.76 – 2021
- Fred Kerley (USA) – 9.76 – 2022
- Ferdinand Omanyala (Kenya) – 9.77 – 2021
- Kishane Thompson (Jamaica) – 9.77 – 2024
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