Yesterday I took a look at how the Premier League has changed in the last ten years jumping from the end of one decade to the end of another and while finishing up my Decade in Review articles and writing in the various occasions the men’s 100m record changed hands I thought I’d take a look at where the record stood way back in 1999 when Usain Bolt was just 13-years old.

In 1999 the World Record was broke, for the first time in three years, on 16 June of that year by Maurice Greene when he ran a time of 9.79. It marked the first time a man had run under the infamous 9.83 set by Ben Johnson while on steroids in 1987 and Greene’s time would stand all the way until 14 June 2005 when Asafa Powell shaved 0.2 of a second off of the time. (Tim Montgomery had taken 0.1 off the record in 2002 but was stripped of the time after failing a drugs test).

The record of 9.77 was equalled on three occasions in 2006 before Asafa Powell came up with a time of 9.74 in 2007. But then came Usain Bolt in 2008 who took the record to new levels. In May of that year he ran 9.72, edging out the record before smashing it at the Beijing Olympics in a time of 9.69, but he wasn’t done, on 16 August of this year while at the World Athletics Championships Bolt ran an unbelievable time of 9.58 seconds. Many believed nobody would ever get into the 9.5 bracket but Bolt has done it and still looks like he can go quicker. No doubt, Bolt has transformed track and field sprinting in this decade.

100m World Record on 31 December 1999: 9.79 seconds
100m World Record on 31 December 2009: 9.58 seconds
A drop of 0.21 seconds in ten years (from 89-99 it dropped 0.13 seconds).

Sometime about twelve months ago I was sitting in Bangor, Northern Ireland, still a few weeks shy of my move to Canada and watching the Olympic games. It had been pretty historic; the opening ceremony was unbelievable, the British track riders were dominating, Phelps was owning the swimming pool and then Usain Bolt ran faster than anyone ever has before … by a long way and did it at a canter.

Today, twelve months on, he did it again at the World Athletic Championships, tearing away from the field to shave 0.11 off his previous best time. Nobody else was close and Bolt showed that he saves it for the big occassions to break his record. It would not be shocking to see him break that record a few more times. After all, why set the best time of your career so early in your career and milk all the publicity at one go … spread it out across a career.

It was the fastest 100m race ever as Gay set the American record for the 100m and Powell took the bronze with a time of 9.84.