By Bob Ramsak
(c) 2008 TRACK PROFILE Report, all rights reserved
BEIJING -- Underscoring the world record performance that thrust him into the sprint spotlight late last spring, Usain Bolt did himself even one better in Beijing, cruising to a 9.69 world record to demolish the field in the final of the men's 100 meters on the second day of action at the National Stadium.
"My aim was just to be the Olympic champion," said Bolt, who lowered the 9.72 mark he set in New York City on May 31. "I wasn't thinking about a world record."
With a performance that defied the imagination, Bolt's assessment seemed to be quite on target. Clearly ahead of Trinidad's Richard Thompson 40 meters into the race, he then forged onward to build a lead so massive that some 75 meters into the race, he began to look side to side, dropping his arms and gesturing as if to ask, 'Where is everybody?'
Actually, said Bolt, it was simply a celebration. And the capacity crowd watching history being rewritten soaked it all in. "As soon as I saw I had the field covered and I knew I would win, I was very happy and I started to celebrate."
There's no way to determine what his final shutdown, along with his one-handed chest thumping as he crossed the line, cost him on the clock - Trinidad's Marc Burns, who finished seventh, estimated his storming performance could have been as fast as 9.55 - but Bolt, who claimed the first 100m gold medal for Jamaica, seemed to care little.
"I haven't seen the replay, so I really can't comment," he said. For the sake of those behind him, it's just as well. "I just came here to prove that I'm the best in the world and I did that." A 0.20 second margin of victory provides plenty of evidence to support that appraisal.
Behind him - well behind him - on planet earth, it was the "forgotten" who produced the hottest pursuit. Thompson, this year's NCAA champion for LSU, ran the race of his relatively short career to finish second in 9.89, with American Walter Dix just a few ticks behind to take the bronze in 9.91. Despite the slowest start of field, Churandy Martina of the Dutch Antilles was fourth, clocking a 9.93 national record.
"He's just a phenomenal athlete," Thompson said. "I don't think anybody could have been him with a run like that today.
Yet again, former world record holder Asafa Powell will go home empty-handed, after running 9.95 to repeat his fifth place showing from Athens four years ago.
Tyson Gay, the 100/200 meter champion last year, didn't even reach the final after finishing a disappointing fifth in his semi final some two hours earlier.
