Emergence of Jamaican sprinter Kishane Thompson injects real drama into men's Olympic 100 metres

Score one more for team Start Slow, Finish Fast.

If you're keeping track of Olympic trials results — and any real track nerd should be — note that Noah Lyles, Sha'Carri Richardson, Shericka Jackson, Andre De Grasse and Kishane Thompson all trailed early in their respective 100-metre finals. And each of them finished first, often against Diamond League-level competition.

So if you think Thompson, who ran a world-leading 9.77 seconds on Saturday to win Olympic trials in Jamaica, needs to squeeze more out of his first 30 metres, take another look at him obliterating a world class field over the final 70. A late 1980s vintage Ben Johnson could put elite fields in a chokehold by 15m and rocket to victory from there. For just about every other top-tier elite before or since, winning means hitting top speed at the right time, and limiting deceleration from there.

Thompson's eye-opening run at Jamaican trials is the latest case in point, and we're focusing on him because he's the least-known of this weekend's 100m champions — and his victory might be the most impressive.

Watch him achieve maximum velocity about two-thirds of the way down the track as he overtakes Oblique Seville, then turn his head a few degrees to the left, keeping both Seville and the infield clock in his line of sight. Simply put, Thompson conducted a 9.77-second sprint clinic, from acceleration to top-end speed, to the low-key showmanship of his late race side-eye.

Last week, if you had asked me whether a sprinter could make a sub 9.8-second run look effortless, I'd have said no. Thompson just proved me wrong.

"My coach instructed me to just run the first 60, nothing more," the 22-year-old Thompson told reporters after the race. "After that, I should just