When Usain Bolt sped to a 9.58 finish at the Berlin World Athletics Championships to win the 100m gold and improved on his 9.69 World Record set a year earlier at the Beijing Olympics, it seemed unreal that a human can break 9.6 in the event.
Unlike the controversy that trailed Florence Griffith-Joyner’s incredible and still unbroken 10.49 women’s 100m record set at the 1988 Seoul Olympics, this time there was a certain level of believability that only Bolt can run that fast.
The record has been categorised among those that will last a long time before it can be broken but Kim Collins, the 2003 World 100m champion believes the record could go as early as 2024.
According to a report in Track and Field News via the Antigua Observer, Collins said recently on the Good Morning Jojo sports show ‘that athletes are constantly pushing the barrier forward and could, as early as 2024, move within reach of the Jamaican’s sprint record.’
‘Well, it could happen as early as next year because the envelope and the barrier is being pushed all the time and it just takes the right conditions, not so much the person.
‘Sometimes things are just right, the track is nice, the weather is nice, the crowd is energetic and the crowd is out there cheering and shouting and you had a great breakfast, lunch or dinner. The field is packed and everybody now ready and the gun is going to go off and we see what happens but it is possible,’he said.
Top on the list of sprinters many will look forward to proving Collins right will be USA’s reigning World Champion, Fred Kerley who clocked 9.76 slast year.
African record holder and reigning Commonwealth spped king, Kenya’s Ferdinand Omanyala who ran 9.77 in 2021.
