However, despite the impressive timings, none of them could come close to matching Bolt’s iconic 9.58-second world record.This raises the intriguing question: what does it really take to shatter the boundaries of sprinting?
Lyles: The fastest man on the planet
The men’s 100m final delivered a photo finish for the ages. Noah Lyles of the USA and Jamaica’s Kishane Thompson both crossed the line in a blistering 9.79 seconds. The difference? A mere five-thousandths of a second, captured in the final fractions of the race.
Lyles’ top speed of 27.84 mph edged out Thompson’s 27.51 mph, securing him the gold. Fellow American Fred Kerley, despite a remarkable 27.77 mph top speed, took bronze with a time of 9.81 seconds.
The starting pistol fired, and a ripple of motion surged through the finalists. All eyes were naturally drawn to the centre lanes, but it was lane seven, often considered an outlier, that held a captivating narrative. Lyles, the eventual champion, stumbled out of the blocks.
His reaction time, a sluggish 0.178 seconds, placed him at an immediate disadvantage.
At the 40-meter mark, a critical checkpoint in the 100m dash, the race was strikingly close. Lyles, still recovering from his poor start, found himself in eighth place. Yet, there was no panic visible in his stride. The tight pack of runners, separated by mere fractions of a second, created an electrifying tension. The race was still anyone’s to win.
As the results flashed on the giant screen, it was the American’s chest that crossed the finish line first. Lyles gave a triumphant smile, etched in gold, while Thompson secured silver. Kerly’s bronze medal. In a breathtaking display of speed and precision, both Lyles and Thompson clocked an astonishing 9.79 seconds, but it was the minuscule margin of five-thousandths of a second that crowned Lyles as the undisputed champion.
World Athletics president Sebastian Coe hailed Lyles as an “absolute rock star,” calling him the biggest sensation since Bolt.
More interestingly, Usain Bolt’s top speed when he set the WR was 27.8mph.
In the 100m final at the Paris Olympics, sixth-placed Letsile Tebogo‘s top speed was 27.92mph.
So why could neither Tebogo nor Lyles break Bolt’s WR?
During the 2009 World Athletics Championships in Berlin, Usain Bolt shattered the 100-meter world record with a time of 9.58 seconds.
Despite Letsile Tebogo and Noah Lyles achieving impressive top speeds—Tebogo reaching 27.92 mph and Lyles 27.84 mph — neither was able to break Usain Bolt’s world record of 9.58 seconds.
The key reason lies not just in speed but in the combination of acceleration, stride efficiency, and race strategy.
Bolt’s performance analysis revealed a peak speed between the 60 and 80-meter marks. In this short 20-meter segment, Bolt reached an astonishing 44.72 kilometres per hour (27.8 miles per hour), covering the distance in a mere 1.61 seconds.
Both Lyles and Tebogo fell short of Bolt’s record-breaking 10-meter splits. While they achieved impressive top speeds, neither runner could maintain the consistent pace that propelled Bolt to two world records. Bolt famously ran half of his record-setting races at a steady 27.8 mph.
In contrast, Lyles and Tebogo exhibited more fluctuation in their speeds.
Lyles, the gold medalist, averaged 25.73 mph, while Tebogo, who finished sixth, averaged 25.46 mph, resulting in the Jamaican doing what Lyles and Tebogo could only dream of.
Source Agencies
