Usain Bolt dominated his events when he was competing in global meets. In addition to dominating the races, he left his opponent trailing far behind. Therefore, the sprinter had a certain amount of confidence in his athletic prowess during sprinting events.
The crowd witnessed the Lightning Bolt celebrating his wins even before completing his events on several occasions.
Usain Bolt in the 100m event at the Beijing Olympics
The most noteworthy incident was when he turned his head to smile at the camera amid the 100m semifinals at the Rio Olympics. This move garnered widespread popularity, and the image became a meme material.
Soon, pictures of the moment began to flood the internet, and memers had the time of their lives. However, this was not the only time the sprinter celebrated early. Although the athlete has never lost a race on account of his premature celebrations, he lost some time on the tracks for it.
Previously, the sprinter broke the world record in the 100m held by compatriot Asafa Powell. When Usain Bolt headed to the Beijing Olympics in 2008, he was already the world’s fastest man. Therefore, he was the favorite in the 100m event at the Games that year.
And Bolt sure did deliver on that. The sprinter did not get a perfect start during the event. But he sped past his opponents to create a significant gap between them by the halfway mark. However, he did something astonishing as he neared the finish line.
As the sprinter reached the 80m mark, he started to showboat and celebrate a victory he had yet to achieve. It was certain that the sprinter would come out victorious in the event, but the celebratory moves made him lose precious time.
The athlete still bested his previous record with a time of 9.69s. However, there is no saying about the time Bolt would have clocked had he waited to celebrate after the event. And he certainly could achieve better times. It is evident from his world record time of 9.58s in the same event exactly a year later at the IAAF World Championships.
Did celebrating early inhibit Bolt from clocking a better time?
There are numerous factors at play influencing the outcome of a race. Therefore, there is no telling if the athlete would have performed even better had he refrained from the early celebrations.
A physicists’ team from the University of Oslo posited that Bolt would have clocked a better time in the event if he had kept the celebratory part till after the event. After considering several factors, the team hypothesized that the sprinter would have completed the event in 9.55s with an error margin of 0.04 seconds.
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However, it is futile to ponder the potential outcome of an event that has long passed. Whatever be the case, Usain Bolt is still the fastest man alive, and his record time of 9.58s still undefeated.
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