Featured Image Credit: Getty/Kasupe
Topics: Usain Bolt, Athletics, Olympics
Luke Davies
Usain Bolt’s 100m world record has already been beaten by a rival sprinter - although it never counted.
Bolt, 38, is an eight-time Olympic gold medallist and is the 100 and 200m world record holder having secured both records at the 2009 IAAF World Championships in Berlin, Germany.
Almost 16 years on, no man has officially recorded a quicker time. However, another athlete has, in fact, bettered Bolt’s 9.58s time but there’s a catch.
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Justin Gatlin was a long-term rival of Bolt and did technically run faster than him in 2011 during an appearance on the Japanese TV show Kasupe! - which you watch below.
Gatlin, 43, was aided by wind machines that produced gusts of up to 25m/s which allowed the American to register a time of 9.45 seconds. Whereas Bolt’s record saw him run in winds of +0.9m/s.
The American, claimed he was “going to win” Olympic gold ahead of the 2016 Olympics in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil.
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"I'm going to win," said Gatlin. "We are bringing it [the gold medal] back to the US. We are gonna bring it back to the USA, to LA to New York. We are going on a tour around the country with it around my neck like a gold chain."
However, this did not prove to be the case as Bolt reigned supreme with a time of 9.81s almost a tenth of a second quicker than Gatlin in second place who ran the 100m distance in 09.89s.
A year later in 2017, Gatlin defeated the Jamaican – who finished third – with the American clocking a time of 9.92s at the IAAF World Championships in London, England.
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“I always respected him as a competitor,” Bolt claimed after the race. “He’s one of the best I have faced.
“For me, he deserves to be here, he’s done his time and he’s worked hard to get back to being one of the best athletes. He’s run fast times, he’s back and he’s doing great. I look at him like any other athlete, as a competitor.”
Despite his many accolades, Gatlin was often booed by crowds due him twice failing a drug test - in 2001 and 2006.
Although it would be a tough ask, a controversial potential rule change could aid sprinters in their pursuit of Bolt's world records.
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As reported by The Telegraph, a laboratory near Cambridge believes the impossible could be achieved if 'smart' tracks are allowed to be used with suggestions that sensors can 'provide a raft of real-time data that would be transformative to athletes, coaches, fans and media, but early testing has pointed to an energy return that is some 20 per cent greater than existing tracks'.