Missing from the field was Bolt’s main challenger, Justin Gatlin of Orlando, whose semifinal time was too slow to make the eight-man field.
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He flew round the bend, but appeared to tie up down the home straight and finished in 19.78secs.
Bolt, who stopped the clock at 19.78 seconds to win by 24 hundredths of a second ahead of Canadian Andre De Grasse, 20.02, and Christophe Lemaitre (France), 20.12, in third, was clear about how he wishes to be remembered.
With Usain Bolt its not about winning medals. He roared, disappointment etched on his face.
Bolt said it was “a brilliant feeling” to win but he was not happy with his time and indicated he may not run the 200m at the world championships next year in London.
The great showman responded in kind by playing air guitar and swaying to the music while smiling and nodding straight into the TV camera. Another gold medal isn’t such a bad consolation prize.
Bolt entertained his fans by donning the Jamaican flag and shaking hands. He kissed the track, made the sign of the cross, and struck his “To Di World” pose, pretending to shoot a lightning bolt into the sky. “I mean, the guys’ last name is Bolt, he’s the fastest man ever, you can’t write a story like that”, he added.
The three-time 100m and 200m champion is now just one 4x100m relay run away from his Olympic “triple triple” – and, in his own words, sporting immortality.
“I ran hard around the turn”. “But I’ve worked hard and I’ve pushed myself to be the best. What else can I do to prove to the world I am the greatest?”
The 200 meters aside, there was success aplenty for the United States Thursday. He even managed a samba on the start line.
There remain, however, fewer better sights in sport than the world’s fastest man in full flight.
It’s worth remembering this could be the last time the charismatic Bolt will grace an Olympic track. He set it in 2009 at the world championships, breaking the mark he’d set the year before (19.30) at the Beijing Olympics.
“I don’t need to prove anything else”, Bolt said. The 200m is after all his favourite event. It is the one he raced as a junior and the bond remains strong.
This could be, then, the end of an era for Bolt and world sprinting.
“I am trying to be one of the greatest; be among [Muhammad] Ali and Pele”.
The 21-year-old De Grasse had it coming and he got it.
De Grasse said he tried to stay focused. I love competing against him, it’s an honour to be a part of history, of what he’s accomplished in his career. “If his time is up I guess a new person has to come in”.
Jamaica’s Usain Bolt celebrates after the men’s 200m final of Athletics at the 2016 Rio Olympic Games in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, on August 18,2016. “I’m getting older. I don’t recover like I used to”.
Bolt’s victory came just four days after he also achieved a hat-trick of Olympic gold medals in the 100m.
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“It has been a pleasure being in same era as Usain Bolt”, the American said.
