Bolt First, Daylight Second and a new track and field world record

Jamaica’s Usain Bolt has continued his golden run at the track and field world championships in Berlin. He has backed up from winning the 100m in a sensational time of 9.58 seconds to win the 200 meters.

Not content to just win gold the big Jamaican has smashed his own world record for the event. Last year at the Beijing Olympics he did not run hard to the line in the 100m race, he addressed this in the 200m race and in the process took Michael Johnson’s long standing 200 meter world record which stood at 19.32 since the 1996 Olympics.

Back in August 2008 Bolt set the mark at 19.30. Bolts new track and field world record for the 200 meters now stands at 19.19.

He came out of the blocks fast and established a huge lead by mid-race. He powered home to see the outstanding new record. Alonso Edward of Panama was second, a massive 0.62 seconds behind running 19.81, Wallace Spearmon of the United States ran 19.85 for bronze and countryman Shawn Crawford finished fourth in 19.89. The first five runners were under 20 seconds.

Tyson Gay did not contest the race due to a groin injury. Without Bolt in the race it was a close contest. The winning margin is the biggest in world championship history.

American Wallace Spearmon who won bronze admitted afterwards that he had gone into the race hoping at best for silver. That is what Usain does to you. “I saw Bolt for maybe three seconds,” Spearmon said. “This guy is really really fast, he’s amazing.”

Bolt can perhaps thank France’s David Alerte for his fast time after the Frenchman false started. In the first start Bolt had a reaction time of 0.345. Lucky for him in the second start Bolt got an awesome start with a 0.133 reaction time which was the fastest in the field. With a great start there was no stopping him.

The world now waits to see just how much lower Bolt can take the 100m and 200m world records.

If you look back over time since the IAAF required fully automatic timing to the hundredth of a second in 1977 the record was only lowered on four occasions before Berlin. Pietro Mennea set it at 19.72 in 1979. Michael Johnson twice broke it in 1996 with 19.66 in June and then at the Olympics he set 19.32. Bolt then shaved it to 19.30 in Beijing when running into a -0.9 wind. He then smashed it in Berlin.

Full results for the men’s 200 meter world championship final are below.

track and field beijing

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