Athletics: the world’s greatest 100m sprint race
What is the world’s greatest 100m sprint race? Of course any occasion where a world record is broken is special, but IMHO it has to offer more than that. To me, there are a few contenders.
It could be the 2004 Olympics, where for the first time, 4 men dipped below 9.90 seconds. This is reputedly the race with the fastest ever average time for the finishers: 9.93s. Check out the final score:
1. Justin Gatlin (USA) 9.85 s (Personal Best, World Record at that time is Maurice Greene’s 9.79s set in 1999)
2. Francis Obikwelu (Portugal) 9.86 s (African record?)
3. Maurice Greene (USA) 9.87 s (Season Best)
4. Shawn Crawford (USA) 9.89 s
5. Asafa Powell (Jamaica) 9.94 s
6. Kim Collins (Saint Kitt’s & Nevis) 10.00 S (Season Best)
7. Obadele Thompson (Barbados) 10.10 s
* Ghana Aziz Zakari (Ghana) (Did Not Finish)

At the 1996 Atlanta Olympics 100m final, Donovan Bailey (pic above) was slowest off the blocks, but still won the race in world record time. Top 5 finishers:
1. Donovan Bailey (Canada) 9.84 s (World Record)
2. Frank Fredericks (Namibia) 9.89 s
3. Ato Boldon (Trinidad) 9.90 s
4. Dennis Mitchell (USA) 9.99 s
5. Mike Marsh (USA) 10.00 s
My personal favourite will always be the 1991 World Championships, where 6 men clocked below 10 seconds. I believe this is the most number of athletes clocking <10 seconds in one race. It was won by Carl Lewis in world record time (9.86s). As usual he was slow initially, but pulled through at the end stages: he's probably the greatest ever 100m sprinter at the 70m-100m stages. Results:
1. Carl Lewis (USA) 9.86 s (World Record)
2. Leroy Burrell (USA) 9.88 s
3. Dennis Mitchell (USA) 9.91 s
4. Linford Christie (Great Britain) 9.92 s
5. Frank Fredericks (Namibia) 9.95 s
6. Ray Stewart (Jamaica) 9.96 s
7. Robson Da Silva (Brazil) 10.12 s
8. Bruny Surin (Canada) 10.14 s
Sources:
IAAF
Condellpark.com
Sprintic.com
Sprintingelite at geocities.com
myweb.lmu.edu
Sporting-heroes.net
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