Bolt Crushes His Own 200-Meter Record

BERLIN — Usain Bolt clearly does not require the intensity of a close race to obliterate his own world records.
After being pushed close to the finish line in the 100 on Sunday by Tyson Gay as Bolt won in a record-setting 9.58 seconds, Bolt had to do the pushing himself in the final straightaway of the 200 on Thursday. Running alone — strikingly alone — in lane 5 in the final straightaway, he showed no interest in cruising to the finish. Instead, he sprinted through, and the result was a time of 19.19 seconds: 11-hundredths of a second faster than the world record he established a year ago at the Beijing Olympics.
It has been a remarkably productive, efficient performance for Usain Bolt at these world championships. He has raced two finals and broken two of his own world records, with the 4x100 relay still to come. And he has now matched his sprint double at last year’s Olympics with another, even faster double on the blue track here.
Bolt, who will turn 23 on Friday, arrived at the Olympic Stadium wearing a T-shirt that read “Ich Bin Ein Berlino,” a lighthearted take on the famous line from President John F. Kennedy’s speech here in 1963. Kennedy’s “Ich Bin Ein Berliner” (“I am a Berliner”) was a show of rhetorical support for West Berlin.
Bolt clearly remains Jamaican, however, and he was as exuberant as usual in the minutes before the 200, laughing with his American rival Wallace Spearmon in the tunnel leading to the track. He then pumped up the crowd — the biggest of the week so far — by waving his arms and talking to the camera.
A false start by the Frenchman David Alerte did not disrupt Bolt’s concentration, as he got off to a roaring start, came out of the curve with a clear lead and then built on it to win by more than five meters. Alonso Edward of Panama was a distant second in 19.81 seconds; Spearmon was third in 19.85. But the number that will live on from Berlin is the blazing fast and symmetrical 19.19.
Bolt had run just one 200-meter race this season before arriving in Berlin, but he has taken the 200 into new numerical territory just as he did in the 100 on Sunday by becoming the first man to break 9.6 seconds.