Record’s gone in just 9.72 seconds as track ace races into history
Standing in front of a crowd of thousands, his name being cheered from the rafters, it took Usain Bolt just 9.72 seconds to cement his place in history.
On this day 12 years ago, the Jamaican runner set the world record for the 100 metre sprint, outstripping his opponents to reach the finish line during the Reebok Grand Prix meeting at Icahn Stadium, in New York City.
The previous record of 9.74 seconds, held by fellow Jamaican Asafa Powell, had been made just eight months earlier in September, 2007, making those 0.02 seconds the most important of Bolt’s career so far.
The runner-up in the race, American Tyson Gay, who was the reigning world champion in the 100 metres event, was quoted as saying: “It looked like his knees were going past my face” as Bolt’s 6ft 5in frame soared to glory.
Just 21 at the time, it may have been the first photofinish moment that made the record books, but it wouldn’t be Bolt’s last – a feat even more impressive when you consider he had only burst on to the world athletic stage four years previously.
Bolt made his Olympic debut at the Athens Games in 2004, but it wasn’t until the Beijing competition in 2008 that he started to build the reputation that would soon see him described as the world’s fastest man.
During the Beijing Games, Bolt cut a further 0.03 seconds off his personal best, finishing the 100m sprint in just 9.69 seconds to take home the gold medal.
Not content with taking home one medal, Bolt then achieved gold in the 200m, too, eclipsing veteran runner Michael Johnson’s 19.32 second record, which had remained unbeaten since 1996. A third gold medal – and yet another world record
– followed in the 4x100m relay.
With the media now nicknaming him the Lightning Bolt, it would have been easy for the gazelle-like runner to simply maintain his records – after all, no one had even come close to treading on his gold-studded shoes.
But Bolt continued to live up to his reputation as a global superstar, and to this day he still holds the world and Olympic 100m records, as well as eight Olympic gold medals, and 19 Guinness World Records.
After his final Olympic appearance at Rio 2016, the year before his retirement, Bolt said what the sporting world was already thinking: “What else can I do to prove I am the greatest?
“I’m trying to be one of the greatest, to be among Ali and Pele. I have made the sport exciting, I have made people want to see the sport. I have put the sport on a different level.”