What does 100m showdown look like without Bolt?
➤ A trio of Americans stand to benefit most from absence of Jamaican great, whose reign in blue riband race lasted 13 years
One of the greatest Olympic athletics reigns will finally end on Sunday at 1.50pm (plus about 10 seconds) UK time. For the first time in 13 years, Usain Bolt will no longer be able to call himself the 100 metres champion and a new name will earn arguably the most coveted Olympic title of all.
“Now that the big man has gone, it’s always going to be open,” British 100m champion Chijindu Ujah said. “It’s exciting. In sport, things move on. He’s won it for the last three Olympics and it’s time for a new champion. No one can really say who that is.”
With one man having dominated the sport for so long, Bolt’s retirement in 2017 opened the door to a new era of competitiveness. No longer was one man expected to win every 100m race. For a period, it looked like Bolt’s natural successor had been anointed. While Justin Gatlin inflicted defeat on Bolt in his farewell race at the 2017 World Championships, it was Christian Coleman who turned the tables on his American compatriot two years later when upgrading silver to gold in 2019. That confirmed his status as the Tokyo Olympics favourite after topping the global 100m standings in 2017, 2018 and 2019, but he was then banned from competing in Japan for whereabouts failures.
So, who will triumph in what appears to be one of the weakest 100m fields for some time?
Trayvon Bromell
If anyone had suggested at the start of 2020 that Bromell would win Olympic gold this summer, they would have been roundly dismissed. Bromell had marked himself out as a star of the future when sharing world 100m bronze in 2015, but his career looked to be over when he was taken off the Rio Olympics track in a wheelchair with a serious Achilles injury. A comeback attempt in 2017 failed and after further surgery, he was able to clock only 10.54sec in 2019.
A change of coach and a slow recovery programme looked to be paying dividends when he recorded 9.90 in a shortened 2020 season, and his upward progression has continued since. Having run a personal best 9.77 in early June and then followed up by winning the American trials, it would now be something of a surprise if Bromell did not win Olympic gold. What a comeback story that would be.
The other Americans
With an Olympic trial where running 9.89 was not good enough to make the team for Tokyo, there is a possibility of a US clean sweep of the medals.
Ronnie Baker recorded a 9.85 personal best in finishing behind Bromell at the trials and will fully expect to win a medal. Known as an indoor 60m specialist in his college years, he failed to make the 2019 World Championships team after injuries, but is now ready to prove himself one of the world’s top sprinters. The third member of the US team is Fred Kerley, bronze medallist at the last World Championships over 400m. He had scarcely ever raced over 100m prior to this year, but made the bold call to ditch what had been his main event and focus on the short sprint. He was rewarded with a 9.86 personal best at the US trials.
Rest of the world
Given that Americans fill eight of the top 10 spots in this year’s global rankings, the rest of the world appear to have some serious catching up to do.
South Africa’s Akani Simbine is a regular in major finals and set his personal best 9.84 this summer, but has repeatedly just fallen short of the podium – finishing fifth, fifth and fourth – at the last three Olympics and World Championships.
The door is now open for him to end that streak of nearmisses.
Although yet to go quicker than 9.90, Canada’s Andre De Grasse has long been tipped as a potential global champion.
He won Olympic 100m bronze and 200m silver in 2016, and fought back from niggling injuries over the next two years to match that identical medal haul at the 2019 World Championships.
Marcell Jacobs, of Italy, has run 9.95 this year and will hope to make the final, while Yohan Blake is not the force he was after hamstring problems, but regularly runs below 10 seconds and remains Jamaica’s best hope.
The British challenge
Britain has been represented in the past two men’s world 100m finals, with Reece Prescod finishing seventh in 2017 and Zharnel Hughes coming sixth in 2019.
Hughes sits joint second on the British all-time list with a 9.91 and had expected to triumph at the British Championships in June, only to false-start. The European champion appears to be Britain’s best hope, although he is yet to break 10 seconds this season.
Prescod is a runner with immense talent and personal best 9.94, but has barely raced since a hamstring injury in 2019 and was somewhat fortunate to be selected after finishing fifth in 10.33 when he admitted turning up “overweight” at the British trials. He improved to 10.13 in early July, but appears to have run out of time to challenge for medals.
The British champion is Ujah, who has plenty of big-stage experience but is yet to make a global final. He last broke 10 seconds in 2017.