The Racers Track Club pair of Usain Bolt and Yohan Blake led a successful Jamaican raid on the gold and silver medals in the men’s 100 metres final at the London Olympics Sunday night. Before a sold-out stadium of 80,000 spectators Bolt overhauled the highest quality field ever assembled to win in a new Olympic record 9.63 seconds (wind 1.5). In doing so, he wrote history by becoming the first man to win two consecutive 100 metres gold medals on the track at a regular quadrennial Olympic Games in the modern era.
His Racers club-mate Blake had the slowest start of the field but recovered to equal his personal best time of 9.75 seconds to snatch the silver medal — his first Olympic medal. After the race, Bolt said he had promised Jamaica a birthday present on her 50th anniversary of independence from Britain and he was glad to oblige. (Jamaica gained political independence from Great Britain on 6 August 1962.)
Earlier in the afternoon, the other two Racers men in the semi-finals — Antigua’s Daniel Bailey and the Gambia’s Suwaibou Sanneh — failed to advance further.
Bolt and Blake will next take to the track in the heats of the 200 metres on Tuesday morning at 11:50 London time.
