LONDON, (Reuters) – From Thomas Burke’s 12-second run to win the first race in 1896 to Usain Bolt’s stunning 9.69 dance in 2008, the men’s 100 metres final has always been the jewel in the crown – not just of athletics but of the entire Olympic Games.
It is the hottest ticket every four years and the most-watched 10 seconds of action in the sporting world, with TV audience claims of billions for once probably not exaggerated.
Run on grass, cinders, rubber and the current near-carpeted surface, the race has evolved technically and tactically. The scowling steroid-fuelled muscle men of the 1980s and 90s, who ripped their shirts off to display their torsos like prize fighters, have been replaced by sleeker performers led by the lithe-limbed Bolt who prefer to laugh and joke on the start line.
Whatever the approach, however, the race remains at heart what is has always been since man first stood on two legs – the purest and most basic test of sporting endeavour. In its Olympic form the race has soared to astonishing heights and plumbed depressing depths, sometimes, in the shape of Ben Johnson’s drug-assisted win in 1988, in the same moment.
Other races have their admirers, particularly among athletics aficionados who appreciate the combination of strength, speed, endurance and tactics needed to succeed at the longer distances.
But for pure, explosive, edge-of-the-seat theatre, nothing can match the sprint.
World records come and go and a world champion’s currency is devalued by that competition’s biennial frequency, so it is the Olympic champion who revels in the symbolic title of the “fastest man in the world”.
It becomes indisputable if a world record and Olympic gold medal arrive simultaneously, though that supreme confluence has happened only three times – four if Johnson’s subsequently annulled 9.79 in 1988 is included.
EAGERLY AWAITED
The London final is the most eagerly awaited for years and is already being billed as potentially the greatest of all time, with the possibility of all eight runners dipping under 10 seconds and Jamaican Bolt’s 9.58 world record under threat.
