The picture of Usain Bolt smiling as he seemed to easily outpace his competition during the men’s 100-meter semifinal race on Sunday night in Rio was a split-second decision to capture by Getty Images photographer Cameron Spencer.
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Bolt has a chance for two more golds – in his favorite race, Thursday’s 200 final, where he has pronounced he’ll be gunning for the world record, then the 4×100 relay Saturday night.
A total of 24 athletes advanced to the three semi-final heats, which will be held on Wednesday evening, 17 August. “It’s a good start and I’m happy”.
Elsewhere, South Africa’s Wayde van Niekerk shocked the Olympic Stadium by smashing the world record as he clinched the gold medal in the men’s 400m. When I crossed the race, I didn’t even know if I was going to be on the podium. “There’s no way you can run and go back around and run fast times again”.
“I am lucky to be here because sometimes during the dark days I didn’t think I’d ever make it back to the Olympics”.
That’s why United States audiences got to see their stars of the pool – Michael Phelps and Katie Ledecky – swim their finals in prime time.
It’s not the first time Bolt has been captured in an incredible photo.
Usain Bolt first introduced his iconic victory pose at the 2008 Beijing Olympics after finishing the 100m event with a new record of 9.69 seconds.
“I’m still young, it’s going to be a while, it’s going to be tough to break that barrier of 9.5”, he said.
Jamaica has been collecting some impressive golds in track and field events at the Rio Games.
Merritt has the best time of the year with 19.74sec, set at the US Olympic trials in Eugene in July.
Sharpe says De Grasse went into the race believing he would win. “It was ridiculous as far as I am concerned, because I felt so good in the semi-finals”, said Bolt, as he shook his head from side to side, apparently in disappointment.
He won NCAA championships in the 100 and 200m for USC previous year, then took gold in those two events before his home crowd in Toronto at the 2015 Pan American Games. Andre de Grasse of Canada won the bronze in 9.91 seconds.
“In the heat of the battle, as happens often to nearly everyone – even Bolt from time to time – Andre got pulled out of his race plan”, McMillan explained.
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For Bolt, the brief rest didn’t have much of an effect, but others complained about it, too.
