Athletics · 2008 · Beijing, China
9.69 Seconds, Slowing Down
A 21-year-old Jamaican sets a 100 metres world record while easing off and celebrating before he reaches the line.
9.69s (world record)
Time
0.20s
Margin of victory
21
Age
Usain Bolt had made the 100 metres his main event only a year earlier, having come up as a 200 metres runner. In the Beijing Olympic final he was clear of the field with twenty metres left, and that is where he stopped racing, spreading his arms and thumping his chest on the way to the line.
The clock stopped at 9.69 seconds, a world record, run with a shoelace reportedly untied and without a committed final stride. Analysts have spent years estimating what he gave away and generally land on several hundredths of a second, which is an odd thing to be able to say about a world record.
He ran faster later, 9.58 seconds at the 2009 World Championships in Berlin, on a night when he actually finished the race. Beijing 2008 is the one people describe from memory, because of what it implied about how much he still had in hand.
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