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Track & Field -
NEWS
The
world 100 metres record was lowered to 9.72 seconds on Saturday
night by an athlete who is just learning to start properly, slows
down before the finish and is not even supposed to be running the
distance seriously. Who knows what Usain Bolt can do when he gets
it all together?
After the 21-year-old Jamaican's startling display on a
waterlogged track at New York's Randall Island, when his lanky,
6ft 5in frame moved inexorably clear of a field that included the
US world champion Tyson Gay, that is the question now being
considered by observers of international athletics.
"I always say the 200 metres is my favourite race. That's not
going to change," said Bolt, whose performance in what was only
his fifth serious 100m race makes him appear ominously capable of
challenging the monumental world 200m record of 19.32sec set by
Michael Johnson in winning the 1996 Olympic title.
Having beaten the 100m mark of 9.74sec set last September by his
fellow countryman Asafa Powell, he said he was "pretty happy" with
his achievement at a Reebok grand prix that was delayed for almost
two hours because of storms. But he became more animated on the
subject of the impending Beijing Games.
"This world record doesn't mean a thing unless I get the Olympic
gold medal," he said. "Tomorrow if someone comes and runs faster
than me, I'm no longer the fastest man in the world. If you're the
Olympic champion, then they have to wait four more years to get
you again. I think the Olympics is the biggest thing, and I'll be
doubling in the 100 and 200 now, definitely."
For all the lightning that flared around the Icahn stadium, the
time recorded by the man known as Lightning could hardly be
regarded as a bolt from the blue given that he had set the second
fastest time in history, 9.76sec, in Kingston on 3 May.
That performance indicated that he was about to start delivering
seriously on the huge promise he had shown in winning two golds
and a silver in the world junior championships aged 15, breaking
20 seconds for the 200m two years later and taking silver behind
Gay in last year's world 200m final.
But even in the aftermath of his Kingston effort, Bolt's coach
Glen Mills had maintained that his athlete was "a quarter-mile
runner". If Mills had had his way, Bolt would have been running
400m races this season in preparation for his 200m challenge, with
a view to moving up later in his career. Bolt, however, hates the
longer distance, and Mills reluctantly agreed last season that he
could run over 100m if he broke the Jamaican 200m record. Bolt
duly did so, recording 19.75sec.
His race in New York, watched by hundreds of flag-waving
Jamaicans, also saw him fail to obtain the maximum from his
momentum and he crossed the line with arms outstretched before
roaring round the bend as if he was running his favourite
distance.
Fate been with him. A poor start when the race got underway was
annulled because another runner false-started. The following wind
would also have been over the legally permissible level of two
metres per second. Second time round, Bolt got away a bit better,
and the wind gauge read plus-1.7mps.
Gay, 5ft 11in, lamented that he had run the same rhythm as Bolt,
but that his opponent's stride pattern was bigger. "He was
covering a lot more ground than I was," he added. Bolt looks set
to have the kind of impact over two distances made by Cuba's
Alberto Juantorena, similarly nicknamed White Lightning, who won
the 400m and 800m at the 1976 Olympics.
Bolt's next planned outing is in Ostrava on 12 June, when he will
run his favourite distance. Expect more lightning.
Fast lane: History of the 100m
10.6sec Donald Lippincott (US) 1912.
10.4 Charles Paddock (US) 1921.
10.3 Percy Williams (Can) 1930.
10.2 Jesse Owens (US) 1936.
10.1 Willie Williams (US) 1956
10.0 Armin Hary (W Ger) 1960.
9.95 Jim Hines (US) 1968.
9.93 Calvin Smith (US) 1983.
9.92 Carl Lewis (US) 1988.
9.90 Leroy Burrell (US) 1991.
9.86 Carl Lewis 1991.
9.85 Leroy Burrell 1994.
9.84 Donovan Bailey (Can) 1996.
9.79 Maurice Greene (US) 1999.
9.77 Asafa Powell (Jam) 2005.
9.74 Asafa Powell 2007.
9.72 Usain Bolt (Jam) 2008.
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