On this day 2009: Usain Bolt breaks WR for World Championship 100m gold in 9.58

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Usain Bolt shattered his own 100 metres world record to win World Championship gold in 9.58 seconds, on this day in 2009. The triple Olympic champion stormed to victory in Berlin’s Olympic Stadium, comfortably beating the mark of 9.69secs set in Beijing the previous year.

Defending champion Tyson Gay set an American record of 9.71 to claim the silver with former world record holder Asafa Powell third in 9.84. Britain’s Dwain Chambers was sixth in 10.00, a season’s best for the then 31-year-old.

In the semi-finals, Bolt had shrugged off two false starts – the second of which saw Britain’s Tyrone Edgar disqualified – to breeze into the final. Bolt was guilty of the first false start, which meant any athlete guilty of another would be disqualified.

But after Edgar had committed that second misdemeanour and left the track, Bolt was quickly out of his blocks and almost as quickly began easing down to a brilliant time of 9.89.

That indicated something special was on the cards and the Jamaican superstar duly delivered, powering out of the blocks at the first time of asking in the final and seizing control of the race within 30m.

From there it was only a matter of the time and the large crowd exploded as Bolt streaked across the line to create another piece of sporting history.