In the 16 years since Usain Bolt posted his world records in the 100 and 200 meters, nobody has really come close to toppling them.
One of track’s all-time greats and maybe still its most-recognizable star said he looks at today’s top sprinters and doesn’t expect that to change anytime soon.
“I’m not worried,” Bolt said at a Puma event on Thursday, two days before the start of world championships that will be the first he has attended in person since he retired from competition eight years ago.
Bolt set both records – 9.58 in the 100 and 19.19 in the 200 – at worlds in Berlin in 2009.
Since then, only one other runner, Yohan Blake, has cracked 9.7 in the 100, and only Blake has run faster than 19.3 in the 200.
American Noah Lyles is the only sprinter to be outspoken about putting Bolt’s marks in his sites.
Lyles caused a stir in 2023 when he said he was thinking about times of 9.65 and 19.10, saying “I have a good reason to believe I’m going to do something I’ve never done before.”
\Lyles pulled off a Bolt-like feat by winning both sprints at worlds that year, but he has yet to surpass the 19.31 he ran at the 2022 worlds to break Michael Johnson’s long-held American record.
This year’s fastest 100 metres was posted by another Jamaican, Kishane Thompson, whose 9.75 makes him a favourite heading into Sunday’s final expected to include Lyles, American Kenny Bednarek and another Jamaican, Oblique Seville.
Bolt predicted a 1-2 Jamaican finish, with Thompson and Seville at the top of the podium.
“It’s all about if they can execute – not listen to the noise and go execute,” Bolt said.
With his upright stride and 6-foot frame, Australia’s 17-year-old Gout Gout has drawn comparisons to Bolt, in part because Gout is slightly ahead of where Bolt was, time-wise, when he was 17.
Could Gout be the man to break one of Bolt’s records? “It’s always easy when you’re younger,” Bolt said.
“The transition to seniors from juniors is always tougher. It’s all about getting the right coach, getting the right people around you.”
Bolt said improvements in track surfaces and shoes – Puma, for instance, released results of a study that concluded he would’ve run 9.42 in Berlin wearing today’s shoes – make it inevitable his records will fall someday. Just not now.
“Everything evolves in life, people trying to get better, trying to get faster,” he said.
“It’s not going to be a surprise if it actually happens.” (PTI)
