Usain Bolt reveals which one of his world records he thinks will be broken first as 16-year-old Japanese sprinter takes 100m record

When Usain Bolt ran 100 metres in 9.58 seconds at the World Championships in Berlin in 2009, it seemed as if the only athlete likely to break his world record was Usain Bolt.

The Jamaican, now 38 years old, dominated men's sprinting for years, winning eight Olympic gold medals and knocking off the 100m, 200m and 4x100m world records despite being a notoriously slow starter.

Bolt won both the 100m and 200m gold medals at three consecutive Olympic Games before retiring from the sport in 2017 to pursue his love of appearing in second-rate television adverts.

As time passes and promising young sprinters emerge, Bolt himself believes that there is a possibility someone will go even faster than he did.

But which of his individual world records will fall first?

Bolt predicted in 2023 that the 200m record – he clocked a record time of 19.19 seconds at the same World Championships – will prove more attainable than the astounding 100m pinnacle.

"Not worried about none of them," joked Bolt when asked which record is most vulnerable. "I really don't know, I think the 100m's going to be harder because it's quicker, and if you make a mistake during the race you're not going to get it.

"It's a lot more technical so I think maybe the 100m's going to go last."

Bolt can boast the three fastest 100m times in history and four of the top ten. His record is 11 tenths of a second faster than the best times of Tyson Gay and Yohan Blake.

Blake got within a tenth of a second of the 200m in 2011 but one young sprinter could be on track to challenge Bolt's grip on the shorter distance.

Usain Bolt has multiple World records to his name (Image: Getty)

16-year-old Sorato Shimizu finished nearly three tenths of a second ahead of the field in Japan's Inter High School Championships, running the 100m event in 10 seconds flat.

Shimizu almost became the first 16-year-old to break the ten-second barrier and smashed the previous world record for the age group, jointly held at 10.06 seconds by American Christian Miller, who ran the time in 2023, and Puripol Boonson of Thailand, who matched it just two months later.

Having met the qualification criteria as set out by World Athletics, the teenager could be in line to compete at September's World Athletics Championships in Tokyo in September.

He might be in consideration for Japan's squad despite not competing in the open-age National Championships. His time is the second-fastest by a Japanese sprinter in 2025.