The 9.58 second man

Usain Bolt strikes again.

All those curious to know just how fast Usain Bolt might have gone if he had not stopped sprinting near the end of last year’s world-record run at the Olympics now have their answer.

Bolt pushed himself from start to finish on Sunday night, and the result was a stunning time of 9.58 seconds in the men’s 100-meter final at the track and field world championships. His time was eleven-hundredths of a second better than his already phenomenal world-record run of 9.69 in Beijing.

Tyson Gay, the understated American who was considered Bolt’s biggest threat here, ran the race of his life, setting a personal best and national record of 9.71. But it was not enough as Bolt got off to a fine start by his standards in Lane 4, kept a slight edge on Gay through 70 meters and then built on it through the finish line with his eyes darting right toward Gay’s lane and then left toward the trackside clock as his long legs kept pumping. [...]

When Bolt broke the 9.7-second barrier in Beijing, his time was only three-hundredths of a second faster than the record he had established earlier in 2008.

UPDATE: Neun, acht und fünfzig! Video is up.