He flew round the bend, but appeared to tie up down the home straight and finished in 19.78secs.
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Despite making a fast start in the Olympic 200m final on Thursday night, the 29-year-old Bolt had to work extremely hard down the straight to claim victory in 19.78 seconds, with Canada’s Andre de Grasse second in 20.02. He roared, disappointment etched on his face.
“I’m really happy with two medals, but my race today could have been better”, said De Grasse.
Bolt said on Sunday, after winning his first gold medal of the summer, that he felt he needed two more at these games to “become immortal”.
He recovered to lap up the acclaim as he celebrated, draped in a Jamaican flag.
And Cuba’s three-time amateur world champion boxer Julio Cesar La Cruz bamboozled Kazakhstan’s Adilbek Niyazymbetov to win the light-heavyweight title. “After this, this is why I said it’s my last Olympics because I can’t prove anything else”.
“I honestly don’t know”, Doyle, a member of the 4x400m relay team, said of her performance.
He has the times, too, with Rio personal bests of 9.91, second in Canada only behind Donovan Bailey’s 1996 gold-winning 9.84 and 19.80, a Canadian record.
“This is what I worked for throughout the years”.
“I’ve proven to the world I’m the greatest”, Bolt said.
Ahead of the race he got the customary rapturous reception from the healthy crowd inside the Olympic Stadium and looked relaxed as always.
The appeal was granted and the Americans ran alone in the evening session to make the qualifying official.
There remain, however, fewer better sights in sport than the world’s fastest man in full flight.
A small storm of anticipation had built around the final, arising from De Grasse’s unorthodox challenge of Bolt in their Wednesday semifinal. His plan now looks set to be to compete in the 100m and relay at next year’s World Championships in London, his last before retirement. Millions across the world stay glued to their TV screens to see bolt break yet another record.
This was the race that was dearest to him, over the distance where he had made his first global flourish by winning the 2002 world junior title in his native Kingston at the age of just 15 – and at the height of 6ft 5in.
Usain Bolt tilted his head backward and screamed.
“I am trying to be one of the greatest; be among [Muhammad] Ali and Pele”.
What matters is that Bolt has done it – something that may very well never be done again.
De Grasse chased Bolt home for silver in Thursday’s 200 metres final, having taken a bronze in the 100m last weekend. I love competing against him, it’s an honour to be a part of history, of what he’s accomplished in his career.
“I was just happy it was over and relieved to come out with a win”. Kerron Clement won the men’s 400-meter hurdles, and Ryan Crouser set an Olympic record in the men’s shot put with a distance of 22.52 meters.
Oregon’s Ashton Eaton won the decathlon, the two-day test of versatility, to join the Bob Mathias (1948 and ’52) of the USA and Great Britain’s Daley Thompson (’80 and ’84) as the only two-time decathlon winners in Olympic history.
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Why? De Grasse said that’s something only Bolt can answer.
