Usain Bolt is the world's fastest runner. At the 2009 World Championships in Berlin, Bolt smashed all records by winning the 100m sprint in 9.58 seconds. On August 18, 2016, Bolt announced his retirement from the Olympics as the first person in history to win three consecutive 100-, 150-, and 200-meter Olympic gold medals.
Bolt's final race was the 100 meters at the Rio de Janeiro Games. He crossed the line first with a time of 9.63 seconds, which is currently the fastest time ever by a male sprinter. His time was 0.07 seconds faster than the second-place finisher and qualified him for the Olympic record books. The only other man who has ever broken 10 seconds is John Landry Jones who ran 9.97 in 1924.
Before he retired, Bolt had already declared this year's Olympics his last. "I'm just going to enjoy these games because after these games, it's over," he said. "I don't want to go too fast. I just want to go out there and represent my country well."
His coach, Lornah Kiplagat, believes Bolt will be back in four years' time for the 2020 Tokyo Olympics. "There's no way around it - Usain Bolt is amazing. It's impossible to tell how long he'll continue to run but when he does stop, nobody will be able to touch his time," she said.
Who Is the World's Fastest Runner Today? Without a doubt, it is Jamaican sprinter Usain Bolt. Usain Bolt, 23, of Jamaica, became the world's fastest runner on Sunday, August 16, 2009, when he raced 100 metres in a world record speed of 9.58 seconds. The previous record was 9.69 set by Bolt in 2008.
He has since been surpassed by American Michael Johnson (9.63), but remains number one based on overall performance. If we include both records then Bolt is still number one because his times are not ranked behind another person's all-time mark.
Bolt's manager confirmed on Saturday, August 15, 2009 that the three-time Olympic gold medallist will run in the 100 meters at this year's World Championships in Berlin.
His time in the event is currently unratified but is expected to be close to 10 seconds. That would make him the fastest human being on the planet today.
The only other runners who have reached 10 seconds are Johnson and American Leroy Burrell who both did so in 1991. No other man has come anywhere near Bolt's time over 100 meters.
In fact, no one has even come close to breaking the nine-second barrier. The current men's world record is 9.58 set by Bolt in 2009.
What is Usain Bolt's world record time for the 100m? At the 2009 World Championships, Bolt ran the fastest ever 100m in 9.58 seconds. No other track athlete has ever come within a tenth of a second of that mark, with Tyson Gay and Yohan Blake both clocking in at 9.69 seconds. Has anyone ever run under 10 seconds? Yes, there have been several runners who have broken 10 seconds, but none have managed it yet. Bolt will be 38 years old in 2019 and still runs like a man half his age.
Bolt's current lifetime best is 9.58 seconds, which he set at the 2009 World Championships in Berlin. This makes him by far the greatest 100m sprinter of all time. The next fastest times were set in 1988 and 1991 by Michael Johnson and Carl Lewis respectively.
His fastest non-legal race time was 9.56 seconds, which he set in 2008. This was just 0.02 seconds off Gay's world record time and 0.16 seconds outside Bolt's personal best. In that same year, however, Bolt did not qualify for the 2008 Olympics due to lack of selection criteria. The only person who has ever beaten Bolt's world record is American Tim Montgomery, who ran 9.43 in 2013.
Bolt first came to public attention while competing as a teenager at the 1999 World Championships in Sydney.
The guy who wins the men's 100-meter sprint in the Olympics is commonly referred to as the "World's Fastest Man." Usain Bolt won gold not just in that event but also in the 200-meter dash in 2016. (and the 4x100m relay). The only other man to win three gold medals in one Olympics is Carl Lewis. The rest of the men's field events are split between two or more competitors, so there's no single winner.
Now let's look at some other famous fast men.
In fact, there have been so many men who've beaten the World Record for the 100-meter dash that we can divide them into five eras: pre-Bolt (1968-1991), Bolt (2008-2017), post-Bolt (2018-?), pre-Lewis (1972-1987) and Lewis (1988-2016). During this time, the record has been broken by 10 different men.
The top three men on our list have also held the title of "World's Fastest Man" since they first broke the record. But what if someone else came along and beat them all? Well, there have been several men who've come close, but none have been able to break the chain of success yet.
Usain Bolt, a Jamaican sprinter, established the world record for the 100-meter sprint in 2009 with a time of 9.58 seconds. For those of us who are more accustomed to sitting than running, translating Bolt's achievement into terms of speed merely emphasizes the astonishing nature of his performance. The 20 miles per hour (32 km/h) barrier had previously been thought to be impossible to break until Bolt did so. Since then, no one has come close.
Bolt's record has since been beaten twice: by American Justin Gatlin in 2019 and by British athlete Lewis Hamilton in 2020. The latter result was particularly surprising given that it was reported that Hamilton had suffered two knee injuries that would have ended most other people's careers. However, both men returned to racing and both beat Bolt's record.
So, yes, Bolt is still very much the fastest man on land, let alone online.
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