Usain Bolt

At the 2008 Beijing Olympics Bolt lowered his 100 m world record to 9.69 and broke Michael Johnson's 12-year-old 200 m record with 19.30. At the 2009 World Championships in Berlin he ran 9.58 in the 100 m, the largest cut to the record since electronic timing became mandatory for ratification in 1977, and 19.19 in the 200 m. A 2025 report says he still holds both records.

Bolt won the 100 m and 200 m at the 2008 Olympics, and in 2008 became the first man to win three golds and set three world records at one Games. In 2012 he won the 100 m in an Olympic record of 9.63, the first man to defend that title since Carl Lewis in 1988. At Rio 2016 he took his ninth Olympic gold in the 4x100 m relay, completing a triple treble. In January 2017 the IOC disqualified Jamaica's 2008 relay team after a re-test of teammate Nesta Carter's sample, leaving Bolt with eight golds.

At the World Championships Bolt won the 100 m and 200 m in Berlin in 2009, the 200 m in Daegu in 2011, the 100 m in Moscow in 2013 in 9.77 and the 100 m in Beijing in 2015, beating Justin Gatlin by 0.01 seconds in 9.79. World Athletics said that before the relay in London in 2017 he held a record haul of 11 world titles. In his last individual race there he finished third in the 100 m in 9.95, behind Gatlin and Christian Coleman, for a total of 14 championship medals.

In 2007 Bolt's coach Glen Mills wanted him to move up to the 400 m. Bolt proposed a wager: if he did well in a 100 m, he would be allowed to double 100 m and 200 m the next season. He broke Don Quarrie's 36-year-old Jamaican 200 m record at the national championships, and Mills is quoted by the Jamaica Gleaner as saying Bolt did not even say thank you but asked, 'When is the 100m?' Three weeks later he won his first professional 100 m in Crete in 10.03. Bolt's own account and the NBC account differ on the exact terms of the bet.

Pressing his coach to change the season plan and then delivering the result that earned it is consistent with proactive agency; the account rests on Bolt's own words and one quotation from Mills relayed by a news outlet. Proactive Agency

In the 100 m final at the 2011 World Championships in Daegu, Bolt left his blocks before the gun and was disqualified under the zero-tolerance rule in force since 2010, handing the title to Yohan Blake. He said 'I have nothing to say right now. I need some time.' Days later he won the 200 m at the same championships.

Returning to win another title within days of a public disqualification is consistent with persistence; the sources report the result, not how he prepared. Persistence

In the Beijing 100 m final in August 2008 Bolt slowed and began celebrating before the line, yet still set a world record of 9.69. IOC president Jacques Rogge said he should show more respect for his opponents. Bolt said he was surprised by the criticism, asked some of the other runners whether he had disrespected them, and was told they would probably have done the same. Within the week he won the 200 m in a world record and then the relay. After the Games he went from a relatively new 100 m runner to a global figure and, as the Guardian's 2010 interview describes it, to the centre of questions about doping that he answered by pointing to repeated testing.