How the World’s Fastest Men Battled for Gold in 10 Seconds
TOKYO — There is now a successor to Usain Bolt. Lamont Marcell Jacobs of Italy ran a 9.80-second 100 meters to win the gold medal on Sunday night at Tokyo Olympic Stadium. It marked the first time since 2004 that anyone other than Bolt, who retired in 2017, has been the Olympic champion in the men’s event.
Without Bolt, it was a wide-open race: Nearly everyone in the starting blocks had a shot at victory. A false start caused Zharnel Hughes of Britain to be disqualified, and Enoch Adegoke of Nigeria did not finish; the remaining six competitors all clocked times under 10 seconds.
Fred Kerley of the United States won silver, four-hundredths of a second behind Jacobs, and Andre de Grasse of Canada (9:89) won bronze, as he did in Rio. All three of the top finishers achieved personal best times.
Speed during the entire race
at 72 meters
at 66 meters
at 68 meters
at 74 meters
at 66 meters
at 66 meters
Jacobs’s time was 0.17 seconds off Bolt’s Olympic record of 9.63 that he set in London in 2012, and 0.22 seconds off Bolt’s world record of 9.58 that he set in 2009. The last European to win gold in the 100 was Britain’s Linford Christie in Barcelona in 1992. (Jacobs, who was born in Texas to an Italian mother, ran for Italy.)
Speed throughout the race
Each line is the smoothed average of a runner’s readings.
Jacobs
Explosive start for Kerley
Runners' positions at four moments in first few seconds of the race
Jacobs
Kerley
Jacobs
Kerley
de Grasse
de Grasse
Runners' positions at
four moments in first
few seconds of the race
Jacobs
Jacobs
Kerley
Kerley
de Grasse
de Grasse
Runners’ positions at
four moments in first few
seconds of the race
Jacobs
Jacobs
Kerley
Kerley
de Grasse
de Grasse
Runners' positions at three moments
in first few seconds of the race
Jacobs
Kerley
de Grasse
Kerley blasted out of the blocks faster than any of the runners, reacting with a time of 0.128 seconds. Jacobs’s reaction time was 0.161, the second slowest of the seven starters. During the acceleration phase, the first 30 meters or so, Kerley was holding off the pack.
Speed during first 25 meters
Jacobs
Kerley
Jacobs gains ground
Jacobs
Jacobs
Kerley
Kerley
de Grasse
de Grasse
Jacobs
Kerley
de Grasse
Jacobs
Jacobs
Kerley
Kerley
de Grasse
de Grasse
Jacobs
Kerley
de Grasse
Jacobs erased his early deficit in a hurry, then stayed just behind Kerley through the second 25 meters. Jacobs was running faster than anyone at this point in the race. But Kerley had been a 400-meter runner until switching over to the 100 this year. Specialists in the 400 often make great finishers in the 100, so Kerley appeared to be in good shape.
Speed from meters 25 to 50
Jacobs
Kerley
Jacobs reaches 26.76 m.p.h.
Jacobs
Kerley
de Grasse
Jacobs
Kerley
de Grasse
Jacobs
Jacobs
Kerley
Kerley
de Grasse
de Grasse
Jacobs
Kerley
de Grasse
But Jacobs increased his speed and drew even with Kerley midway through the race — and looked strong. His peak speed was 26.76 m.p.h. Jacobs, a former Italian long jump champion, had set an Italian 100-meter record in May, at 9.95, and then ran 9.94 in the heats here. He would need to run faster than he ever had over the last 50 meters if he wanted to win. In Lane 8, Adegoke pulled up with an apparent leg injury.
Speed from meters 50 to 75
Jacobs
Kerley
A gold, and a personal best, for Jacobs
Jacobs
Kerley
de Grasse
Jacobs
Kerley
de Grasse
Jacobs
Jacobs
Kerley
Kerley
de Grasse
de Grasse
Jacobs
Kerley
de Grasse
In the final meters, Kerley could not hold off Jacobs, who was running the race of his life. With about five meters to go, it looked as if either runner could claim the gold. Kerley was running faster than Jacobs at this point. Both runners leaned hard into the finish line.
When the results were posted, Jacobs had raced more than a tenth of a second faster than he ever had before, setting a personal best and claiming both a gold medal and the unofficial title of the fastest man in the world.
Speed from meters 75 to 100
Jacobs
Kerley
Methodology
The Times recorded the position of every runner in a sequence of more than 100 photographs taken every five-hundredths of a second to determine the speed of each athlete throughout the race. Speeds were calculated by combining the positions of the athletes with timestamp information from the images.