| Usain Bolt - Olympic 100 Meters Champion - The Fastest Human Ever |
 In one of the most extraordinary performances seen at an Olympic Games, the 21-year-old Jamaican clocked 9.69sec to slice .03sec off his own record to win his country its first 100m men's gold medal.Bolt was laughing as he crossed the line as he was that far ahead of the chasing pack with Trinidad's Richard Thompson grabbing the silver medal in 9.89sec and American Walter Dix the bronze in 9.91sec. The major disappointment of the final was former world record holder Asafa Powell who finished fifth in 9.95sec. Despite having been consistently the fastest sprinter in history - he has clocked under 9.8sec five times - Powell is still without a gold medal at a major championships, with victory at the Commonwealth Games in Melbourne the only time he has heard the Jamaican national anthem playing on the dias. Bolt is now short-odds to become the first man since Carl Lewis in Los Angeles in 1984 to capture the Olympic sprint double with the 200m final on Wednesday night. The writing was on the wall after the semi-finals when Bolt cruised down in 9.85sec, just .01sec off the Olympic record which Donovan Bailey had held since 1996. As he'd done in the second round heat the previous evening, the giant Jamaican spent the second half of the race looking at the big television screen and then at his rivals such was the ease of his work. It was in the second semi-final, which Powell won in 9.91sec, that the event lost its much-hyped third key player with reigning world champion Tyson Gay failing to qualify. The American strained his hamstring during the 200m at the US Olympic trials in June and hadn't been able to compete in the lead-up to the Games. Despite bravely trying to talking up his chances during the week, Gay looked rusty in the opening two heats and from lane nine last night he finished fifth in 10.05sec. "I don't know (what happened)," he said. "I just didn't have nothin' in me today. I ran as fast as I could. I focussed on the Olympics so I'm disappointed. I thought I would get into the finals. " Gay, who clocked a wind-assisted time of 9.68sec at the US trials, refused to blame his hamstring on the below-par performance. "The injury was a setback to my training, but that's no excuse because my hamstring feels fine," he said. "I feel great, I feel strong, I feel relaxed, it just wasn't there." This had clearly been the most anticipated Olympic men's 100m final since Seoul in 1988 when the infamous Ben Johnson went head-to-head with the Lewis. It had all the elements in the lead-up. The new world record holder taking on the former world record holder, who just happened to be a fellow countryman and close friend, and the reigning world champion. The Powell-Gay rivalry had been established at last year's world championships where the Jamaican finished third after choking in the final behind the American while Bolt has come into the picture this year. He was only doing the 100m this season to improve his speed for his preferred event the 200m and was as surprised as everyone when he took .02sec off Powell's world record, running 9.72sec in New York on June 1. There has always been a buzz about Bolt since as a 15-year-old he won the world junior 200m title but his laid-back care-free attitude and love of a good time had been seen by some as a possible problem. The 196cm sprinter looks like a typical West Indian fast bowler and he is a massive cricket fan who said last week in Beijing that he loved the work of big-hitting Australian cricketers Matthew Hayden and Adam Gilchrist "They bat aggressive and I really like it, that is who I am really,'' Bolt said. Bolt and Powell, who hang out together when at home in Kingston, have raced several times and while Bolt won the Jamaican Olympic trial in June, Powell got revenge in Stockholm in late July, signalling he was back to his best after being plagued by minor injury problems throughout the year. Remarkably given last night's events, Bolt hadn't made up his mind to run the 100m until he arrived in Beijing two weeks. His main focus has always been the 200m, in which he won the silver medal at last year's world championships, and he has the fastest time this year of 19.67sec. Source: Herald Sun/Scott Gullan
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