Usain Bolt: When Tyson Gay ran faster than former 100m world record in 2008

Usain Bolt’s 100-metre world record currently stands at a head-spinning 9.58 seconds.

However, that wasn’t always the case, because it’s easy to forget that Bolt actually set a new world record as the planet’s fastest man no less than three times throughout his legendary career.

Before a prime Bolt began to tear everybody in track and field apart, the men’s 100-metre world record stood at 9.74 seconds, which fellow Jamaican Asafa Powell posted in September 2007.

The quickest run in history that we all know today was produced by Bolt just two years later as he won the 100m final at the 2009 World Athletic Championships in the aforementioned time of 9.58.

As such, during that two-year period, Bolt chiselled away at Powell’s former world record twice with the second of which famously coming in the 2008 Olympic final when he clocked 9.69 seconds despite slowing up in celebration fully 20 metres before the line.

However, the oft-forgotten first time that Bolt ever broke the 100m world record actually came at a minor meet in New York when he stormed to a time of 9.72 seconds in May 2008.

And hold that thought for a second because the sporting world was actually only a few notches on a wind gauge away from having experienced a situation that seems impossible: someone breaking Bolt’s 100m world record.

That’s because it looked for a few seconds as though that was exactly what happened at the US Trials for the 2008 Olympics when Bolt’s record stood at that New York barrier of 9.72.

In dramatic scenes that are still remarkable to watch almost 15 years on, Tyson Gay – the joint-second-fastest man in history – looked to have won the 100-metre final in a time that was quicker than Bolt’s world record.

The American star crossed the