Usain Bolt celebrates after breaking the 200m world record (© Getty Images)
Usain Bolt broke Michael Johnson’s 200m World record when taking the Olympic sprint double in the Bird’s Nest stadium tonight.
Running into a wind of (-0.9m/s), Bolt in lane five had undone the stagger within a few metres and had a sizeable margin on the entire field which he inexorably built on down the home straight.
There was not to be any clowning as in his World record 100m victory on Saturday (16), as Bolt and the 91,000 crowd knew very well the goal at which he was aiming once the title was secure with little more than 120 metres run.
Bolt who celebrates his 22nd birthday tomorrow, made a classic sprinters dive at the tape and Johnson’s World record of 19.32 run in the Atlanta 1996 Olympic final was history (1 Aug).
19.30*!
A legend had replaced a legend, the stadium stood stunned once more and Beijing 2008 had crowned its ultimate hero, fittingly in the Olympics first sport!
The last man to hold both the 100m and 200m World records simultaneously was Jamaica’s Don Quarrie, the 1976 Olympic 200m champion (9.9 Modesto 22 May 1976 - last ratified hand timed 100m World record; 19.8 Cali 3 Aug 1971 and Eugene 7 June 1975 - last ratified hand timed 200m World record ).
"I decided that I would come out and leave everything I've got on the track and I did just that," said Bolt.
* pending the usual ratification procedures
IAAF
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