Why Usain Bolt believes he could have broken more records today
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Reading Time: 2min | Sat. 25.10.25. | 16:05
At 39, Bolt remains the fastest man in history, and his world record has now endured for 16 years
Jamaican sprint icon Usain Bolt has admitted that one of his few regrets after retirement is not getting the chance to compete with the kind of advanced running spikes that today’s athletes enjoy.
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The eight-time Olympic gold medalist reflected on how technological advancements, especially the introduction of super-spikes, have changed sprinting performances in recent years.
Bolt, whose 100m world record of 9.58 seconds has stood since the 2009 World Championships in Berlin, believes he could have lowered that mark even further with the new gear.
“Someone who continued after I retired was Shelly-Ann Fraser-Pryce, and I saw what she did; she got faster with the spikes.
I probably would have run way faster if I’d continued and if I knew that spikes would have gotten to that level,” Bolt said.
At 39, Bolt remains the fastest man in history, and his world record has now endured for 16 years, the longest reign in the event’s history. It has surpassed Jim Hines’ 14-year hold of the 9.95s record set at the 1968 Mexico City Olympics.
During their joint reign between 2008 and 2017, Bolt and Fraser-Pryce were the faces of Jamaican sprinting dominance, sweeping titles across the Olympics and World Championships.
But while Bolt retired after the 2017 season, Fraser-Pryce continued, and remarkably got faster.
The sprint queen won her fourth world 100m title in 2019 at the Doha World Championships with a blistering 10.71s, her quickest time since 2013. She also became the oldest woman and the first mother since Gwen Torrence in 1995 to claim a global 100m title.
Then, at 35, she rewrote history again, winning her fifth world title in Oregon in 2022 with 10.67s. That season, she clocked 10.62, 10.65, 10.66, 10.67, and 10.70 seconds, recording the eight fastest times of the year and becoming the first woman to run under 10.70 seven times in one season.
Her continued improvement, aided by advancements in spike technology, appears to validate Bolt’s belief that he, too, could have run faster under similar conditions.
Even with newer spikes, Bolt is confident that his world record is safe for the foreseeable future, though he acknowledges that Jamaica has exciting prospects in the men’s sprints, including Kishane Thompson and Oblique Seville.
“I think the talent is there, and those who are coming up will do well. But at this present moment, I don’t think they will be able to break the world record,” he said.
