Today in History: Usain Bolt broke the 100m world record for the first time
The greatest sprinter of all time set his first 100m world record on this day all the way back in 2007.
Usain Bolt’s rise to becoming the greatest sprinter of all time started when he set his first 100m world record today, 11 years ago.
At an IAAF World Athletics Tour meeting in New York, Jamaica’s Usain Bolt set a new world record for the men’s 100m, with a time of 9,72 seconds.
Bolt, only 20 at the time, had run a 9,76 second 100m earlier that month, and was in fine form heading into the meet in New York.
The meet was the Reebok Grand Prix, and Bolt finally made himself a household name in the sprinting world when he ran the 100m in 9,72 seconds, surpassing fellow countryman Asafa Powell’s 9,74 run in September 2006.
On Randall’s Island, where Leroy Burrell set a world record of 9,90 seconds in 1991, Bolt’s race was the final event of the 4th Reebok Grand Prix, and was cast as a duel with American Tyson Gay, who was then the reigning 100m world champion.
Gay finished second, in 9,85 seconds.
After the race, Bolt explained that he “knew if I could beat Tyson [Gay] out of the blocks, I could win the race.”
Bolt also said that he had considered his race “99 per cent perfect,” but refused to speculate on what kind of time a perfect race would have had.
“I don’t need to break the record again,” he laughed.
“It’s mine now.”
“The world record means nothing without gold medals in the World Championships or the Olympics,” he added. “If you are the Olympic champion, they have to wait four years to try to beat you.”
Rest assured, Bolt put the world championships and Olympics issues to bed, and also made the record his own, when he broke his own record at the following year’s Beijing Olympics by running a time of 9,69 seconds in the 100m final.
He broke the record for a third time, at the 2009 Berlin IAAF World Championships, when he ran a blazing time of 9,58 seconds.
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