Read the Sports Geek’s and Loyal Homer’s arguments on whether or not Usain Bolt is the most dominant athlete in the world.
According to Doc Brown, 1.21 “Jigowatts” was the amount of energy produced by a BOLT of lightning, the same energy required to reach the speed necessary for time travel. That is also about how fast you need to run in order to beat Usain BOLT in a race!
Usain Bolt shot onto the scene at the Track and Field events at the Beijing Olympics of 2008. Since then, people can barely talk or write fast enough to keep up with his accomplishments! Last week at the IAAF World Championships in Berlin, Germany, Bolt continued to prove his dominance in the sport by winning gold in the men’s 100m, 200m, and the 4x100m.
Proudly displaying once again on Thursday why he is known as the “World’s Fastest Man,” Bolt’s time of 19.19s in the 200m set a new world record, surpassing his own record of 19.30s which was set at the Beijing games. Bolt earlier in the week also broke his own world record for the 100m with a time of 9.58s.
What impressed me most was not Bolt’s times, or even his world records. Instead, I was most impressed with the distance between his finish, and those of his competitors. In a distance of only 200 meters, Usain Bolt was able to create almost a full second of separation between himself and the next fastest runner, who is also considered a world class sprinter!
In response to Bolt’s performance at Berlin last week, writer Tim Lemke of the Washington Times posed a very interesting question that we here at The Sports Debates are very happy to tackle:
Is Usain Bolt the most dominant athlete in history?
His dominance makes him appear to be unbeatable, but how does that dominance rate in terms of all sporting history?
In his article, Lemke cites other athletes who dominated in their respective eras. Some examples that he mentions are – Lance Armstrong, Edwin Moses, Tiger Woods, and Michael Phelps. Each are examples of athletes who were/are considered by many to be unbeatable. It is prestigious company to keep.
Loyal Homer will argue that Usain Bolt not only deserves to be included among the names mentioned by Tim Lemke, but that Bolt actually deserves to be the name on top of that list.
Sports Geek will argue that Usain Bolt, whose performance in recent years has been undeniably impressive, still has not done enough to be considered the most dominant of all time.
Take your mark – Get Set – Go!
