The shadow of Usain Bolt on the 100m . track
In 2023, the best 100m runner of the year was Zharnel Hughes - British athlete broke the national record of Olympic champion Linford Christie - with a time of 9 seconds 83 to win the New York Grand Prix in June.
With the exception of 2020 without tournaments because of Covid-19, this is the worst year performance of male runners since 2004. At that time, Justin Gatlin of the US held the best record of the year with 9 seconds 85 to win the HC. gold at the Athens Olympics.
This year, there are 19 athletes with a time of under 10 seconds - from 9 seconds 83 to 9 seconds 93, and 12 of them will compete at the World Athletics Championships from August 19 to August 27 in Budapest. Since Bolt retired after the tournament in London 2017, the 100m world champion has continuously changed hands through each tournament.
At that London tournament, Justin Gatlin defeated Bolt when he won the gold with 9 seconds 92, while the Jamaican legend only finished third with 0.03 seconds slower. Despite the victory, the American runner was still on his knees and grateful to Bolt, one of the greatest athletes in history.
The position of the fastest 100m foot runner continued to change at Doha 2019, when Christian Coleman finished first with a time of 9 seconds 76. This is also the best time of the year and is 13% faster than the parameters of Gatlin when he won the previous championship.
Coleman's reign quickly ended when he failed to provide residency information to the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) three times. Whereabouts is the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) anti-doping method, applied to top athletes. Every day of the year, athletes must report where they are for one hour (from 6am to 11pm), so that WADA can do a surprise doping check if necessary.
Therefore, Coleman is banned from competing in Tokyo 2021 - where Lamont Marcell Jacobs becomes the new king of the Olympic 100m event, after Usain Bolt - who dominated this event in the previous three Olympics (2008, 2012 and 2012). 2016). The Italian-American runner finished first in the final with a time of 9.80 and became the first European to win the men's 100m gold medal since Linford Christie's victory in Barcelona in 1992.
But then, Jacobs was injured again and withdrew from the semifinals of the 100m content at the 2022 World Athletics Championships in Eugene, USA. Here, Fred Kerley led the American three-legged team to win all three medals, with a time of 9.86. Kerley's two compatriots, Marvin Bracy-Williams and 2021 US champion Trayvon Bromell, both hit a time of 9. seconds 88, won silver and bronze respectively. The difference between second and third place is only 0.002 seconds.
Therefore, fans are waiting to see if the 100m event at Budapest 2023 will have a new champion or Kerley will successfully defend the throne - something that has not happened since Bolt's retirement. In Budapest 2023, the men's 100m qualifying round will take place on August 19, the semi-finals on the afternoon of August 20 and the final on the evening of the same day.
With 11 gold medals at world tournaments and 8 Olympic gold medals, Bolt is one of the icons of sports, not just athletics or short running. In the men's 100m distance, despite retiring since 2017, Bolt still holds both the world record and the Olympic record. The Jamaican legend set the world record in August 2009 in Berlin with a time of 9 seconds 58, and set the Olympic record in London 2012 with a time of 9 seconds 63. In addition, he currently holds two world records. in the 200m (19 seconds 19) and 4x100m relay (36 seconds 84).
