How Usain Bolt secured legend status with 200m final gold at Rio Olympics

USAIN Bolt won a third successive Olympic 200m gold, further cementing his legendary status. Here’s a breakdown of how he won his eighth gold medal.

USAIN Bolt won a third successive Olympic 200m title, further cementing his legendary status and keeping alive his hopes of an unprecedented “triple triple” in Rio.

Here’s a breakdown of how Usain Bolt won his eighth gold medal.

PRE-RACE

As ever with an Usain Bolt race, the atmosphere is rocking as the Fastest Man Alive enters the stadium. Even light rain can’t dampen the atmosphere as the Guns N’ Roses classic “Welcome to the Jungle” blares and thousands of tiny white lights sparkle from the stands. They are phone cameras documenting the moment and they are all trained on one man.

Bolt lifts his arms in the air, acknowledging the buzzing crowd. He jigs and dances, and even does an air guitar at one point.

Eventually the crowd is called to a hush. Bolt gets down on the blocks and crosses himself. Only heaven knows why.

Usain Bolt gestures before the start of the 200m final.

THE START AND THE TURN

Running in lane six Bolt gets one of his fastest starts in years, and within 10 strides has carved a gap between him and US challenger DeShawn Merritt just a lane on his inside.

By 60 metres he has already caught up to Frenchman Christophe Lemaitre on his outside and passed him. The rest of the field is still roughly level, otherwise.

THE TOP OF THE STRAIGHT

As they pass the 100m mark and are supposed to even out, Bolt is three metres ahead.

Britain’s Adam Gemili is the next best and starting to emerge in lane two, but still the rest of the field is pretty much level.

Usain Bolt on his way to winning the 200m final.

150M MARK

Here is where someone might hope that Bolt tires, and they run over the top. Hope is the operative word.

No-one is catching Bolt tonight. He maintains a gap of two to three metres but the minor placings are getting interesting. Gemili has dropped back and Turkey’s Ramil Guliyev is gone out the back.

Canadian whiz kid Andre De Grasse starts to make his move. Merritt is still holding in the middle, too.

175M​ MARK

Peerless, Bolt is now extending his lead to four metres.

De Grasse opens up an outright lead in second and five other runs are almost dead level, pushing for third.

Usain Bolt of Jamaica wins the gold medal in the 200m final at the Rio 2016 Olympic Games. Picture: Brett Costello

​FINISH LINE

He’s way out in front but Bolt tires ever so slightly​, and the world record eludes him. The extra work done in his heat against De Grasse doesn’t give him the spring to beat his record, but Bolt has done something no man has done before: the triple double. Gold in the 100m and 200m at three consecutive Olympics.

Usain Bolt celebrates as he wins the 200m final at the Rio 2016 Olympic Games. Picture: Phil Hillyard

De Grasse wins silver and somehow Gemili and Lemaitre finish in a dead heat on times for third.

It is determined the Frenchman has crossed first, however, and he wins the bronze.

Bolt looks knackered as he celebrates with the crowd, and later does a slow victory lap to the soundtrack of Bob Marley’s “One Love”.

For an adoring crowd, it is the perfect choice.

Usain Bolt waves to the crowd after winning the 200m final at the Rio 2016 Olympic Games. Picture: Phil Hillyard

Originally published as How Usain Bolt secured legend status with 200m final gold at Rio Olympics