Usain Bolt may have crossed the line in 9.55 s at last year’s Beijing Olympics if he had kept his speed

By Michael Banks

Few would doubt that Jamaican sprinter Usain Bolt is now the fastest man on the planet and will probably hold that title for a long time to come.

Yesterday, he won the 100 m sprint in the record-breaking time of 9.58 s at the World Championships held in Berlin.

But, of course, we all knew that he could run that fast.

After his previous record-setting time of 9.69 s at the Beijing Olympics last year, astrophysicists at the University of Oslo in Norway worked out that Bolt could have run even faster if he had gone flat out rather than slowing down in the last 20 m of the race to celebrate his win.

And they got it pretty much spot on.

The physicists calculated that Bolt could have covered the 100 m in 9.55 s (plus or minus 0.04 s) if he had maintained his pre-celebration acceleration.

So maybe there is still some room for improvement for Bolt to beat his newest record.