100 m, men

What to remember

The 2009 World Championships in Berlin, August 16: Usain Bolt covers the straight in 9.58 s. The Jamaican sprinter wipes out his own time from the Beijing Olympics, 9.69 s in 2008, cutting 0.11 s from it in a single race. The run works out at an average speed of 37.58 km/h, in what is often described as the most prestigious event in athletics.

The history shows how far the event has come. In 1912, the year the international federation began ratifying world records, Donald Lippincott ran 10.6 s. Jesse Owens brought the mark down to 10.2 s in 1936, and in 1968 Jim Hines posted the first record below 10 seconds, at 9.9 s. Later came Maurice Greene (9.79 s in 1999). Between the 1912 mark and the 2009 one, 97 years apart, the time dropped by 9.6%.

The record is not the only highlight of his career. Bolt is an eight-time Olympic champion and also broke the 200 metres world record, as well as, with Jamaica, the 4 × 100 metres relay record. He is the only sprinter to win both Olympic sprint titles at three consecutive Games (2008, 2012 and 2016), and as an eleven-time world champion he is the most successful male athlete in World Championships history.