Staggering footage of Chinese robot smashing Usain Bolt's world record at event
Usain Bolt's world record has finally been broken - by a Chinese robot - in a race at the World Humanoid Robot Games.
Bolt remains the fastest man on the planet, having clocked a world record 100m time of 9.58 seconds in Berlin at the World Championships.
The incredible time from the eight-time Olympic gold medalist has never been beaten - and no sprinters have come close to usurping him since then.
However, Bolt has been knocked off his perch by the magic of technology.
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The second edition of the World Humanoid Robot Games took place in Beijing, China and saw bots compete in a total of 51 different events that stretch from boxing to household chores.
Sprinting was also on the agenda, with humanoid robots taking to the track on Saturday in a preliminary heat.
And there was a world record time achieved by a robot named Tiangong Ultra, after it ran 100m in 9.39 seconds.
Although nowhere near as graceful as Bolt, the robot, developed by the Beijing Humanoid Robot Innovation Center, overtook smartphone maker Honor's Lightning near the finish line to pick up the record-breaking win.
Mats were placed after the finish line and proved to be handy after two of the robots crashed hard and Lightning, which also came in faster than Bolt's time at 9.47 seconds, had to be carried away on a stretcher.
Chinese state media reported that prior to the preliminary heat, Lightning ran 9.32 seconds in a preparatory test where it reached peak speed of 14.5 metres per second.
Last year, Tiangong Ultra won the 100 metres but at a much slower pace, coming in at 21.50 seconds.
The robot also won the world's first humanoid robot half-marathon last year.
The second edition of the games included 2,056 robots from 666 teams, spanning 16 countries and six continents across the five days.
The industry, heavily leaning on artificial intelligence, is rapidly advancing, with Unitree, who had a humanoid robot in the aforementioned race, said to have a market value of $50 billion.
There was another world record in the standing high jump; a humanoid robot from X Humanoid reached 2.88m - beating the human high jump record, which belongs to Javier Sotomayor of Cuba after his efforts in 1993.
For Bolt's 100m record, the best time since his heroics stands at 9.69 seconds - run by his compatriot Yohan Blake and long-time rival Tyson Gay.
US sprinter Justin Gatlin did beat Bolt's record with a time of 9.45 seconds while live on a Japanese television show g on a TV show called 'Kasupe!'.
However, the sprint was illegal as wind machines were placed behind the starting block and along the track to provide a speed boost.
The 25m/s tailwind was much higher than the mandatory wind speed limit of less than 2m/s for a legal record.
Bolt retired from athletics in 2017, with the 11-time world champion pursuing a career in football and having an extremely brief spell with Central Coast Mariners in the Australian A-League.
In a new development, Bolt appears to have signed for Wythenshawe Vets, a Sunday League team packed with ex-Premier League players.
Topics: Usain Bolt
Josh Lawless