Was lucky enough to see Usain Bolt win the Olympic gold in men's 100-metre dash, sets Games record in Olympic Final London 2012 while the stadium erupts !!
Passes across the line in a blazing fast 9.63 seconds — topping his Beijing Olympic record of 9.69 but leaving his 2009 world-record 9.58 intact. —0.06 seconds quicker than his mark in Beijing four years ago (though still 0.05 seconds slower than his world-record performance in Berlin in 2009)
See the bottle being thrown in the back round onto the track just before the starter gun goes off.
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| The Bolt Arms |
Bolt and Blake celebrate with Wenlock
Bolt gets a Gold Wenlock
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Bolt doing interviews |
100m competition format
The basics
The
100m is run along the home straight of the athletics track. Athletes
start in the set position – kneeling down with their feet in the
starting blocks
Competition format
The 100m competition starts with a
preliminary round, which is limited to those athletes who have not as
yet achieved the qualifying standards. The qualification procedure from
this round is determined by the final number of entrants.
The
competition then continues with heats. The number of heats and the
number of athletes progressing to the next round depends on the number
of athletes competing. In each heat the fastest athletes go through, as
well as a set number of the fastest losers across all the heats. The
following rounds run on the same format, until eight athletes are
through to compete in the final.
The draw to determine which heat
athletes run in is decided by their initial seedings (based on previous
performance) for the first round, and then their performances after
that. This ensures that the highest seeded athletes are not drawn in the
same heat.
In the first round, an athlete’s lane allocation is
drawn by lot, and in subsequent rounds it is dependent on their
performance. The highest-seeded athletes are drawn in the centre lanes.
Keys to success
In
sprint races, the time separating athletes can be as little as one
hundredth of a second, requiring a photo finish. A good start is
crucial, as is technique while running and the quality of the finish.
The winning athletes must be relaxed but perfectly focused on their
race.
Breaking the rules
The most dramatic error for
spectators, and arguably the most cruel for athletes, is the false
start. Once in the set position on the blocks, any athlete moves off the
starting blocks either before the gun has fired or within 0.10 sec of
the gun firing is disqualified. Athletes can also be penalised for
running out of their lane or obstructing another athlete.
