Athletics Hero: Usain Bolt

Full Name: Usain St. Leo Bolt
Nationality: Jamaican
Date of birth: 21 August 1986
Place of birth: Trelawny, Jamaica
Height: 1.95 m
Weight: 93.9 kg
Event: 100m, 200m, 4x100m
Personal bests: 9.58 WR, 19.19 WR, 37.10 WR

Usain Bolt is a Jamaican sprinter and a three-time Olympic gold medalist. He holds the world record for the 100 metres, the 200 metres and, along with his teammates, the 4x100 metres relay. He also holds the Olympic record for all three of these races. At the 2008 Summer Olympics, Bolt became the first man to win three sprinting events at a single Olympics since Carl Lewis in 1984, and the first man to set world records in all three at a single Olympics. In 2009 he became the first man to hold the 100 and 200 m world and Olympic titles at the same time.

Bolt distinguished himself with a 200 m gold medal at the 2002 World Junior Championships, making him the competition's youngest-ever gold medalist. In 2004, at the CARIFTA Games, he became the first junior sprinter to run the 200 m in under 20 seconds with a time of 19.93 s, breaking Roy Martin's world junior record by two-tenths of a second. He turned professional in 2004, missing most of his first two seasons due to injuries, but he competed at the 2004 Summer Olympics. In 2007, he beat Don Quarrie's 200 m Jamaican national record with a run of 19.75 s. In May 2008, Bolt set his first 100 m world record with a time of 9.72 s. He set world records in both 100 m and 200 m events at the 2008 Beijing Summer Olympics: 100 m record time of 9.69 s broke his own previous record of 9.72 s; with a record time of 19.30 s he broke previous record of 19.32 s by Michael Johnson at the 1996 Summer Olympics in Atlanta. In August 2009, a year after the Beijing Olympics, he lowered his own 100 m and 200 m world records to 9.58 s and 19.19 s respectively at the 2009 World Championships. His record breaking margin in 100 m is the highest since the start of digital time measurements.

His achievements in sprinting have earned him the media nickname "Lightning Bolt".