Donovan Bailey peaked at 28. Maurice Greene peaked at 26. Ben Johnson, for what it’s worth, peaked at 26. I don’t think there’s any doubt the true greats peak in their late 20s.
I stand by my prediction. 9.39 in 2012.
DSYoung: Oops.
If you get Ohio State or Florida to time him he might break 8 seconds. 
What? Mo Greene still hasn’t peaked . . . if you ask Mo Greene :D.
Is the event on US TV anywhere?
Watch the slow-motion of the start (about 1:19). It looks like Bolt almost stumbled or dragged his left foot on the ground right on the first stride. And he still ran 9.58.
Versus (the Tour de France channel) for the rest of the week and then NBC on Saturday and Sunday.
I figure Bolt matched what he could have ran at Beijing in the final had he not started showboating. I was expecting a 9.5 something but it still was amazing to see the time on screen just as Tom Hammond screamed it…reminded me of my reaction to Ben Johnson’s superhuman time in Seoul. Hope its just yams in Usain’s case. 
I’m amazed that Bolt can manage to get out of the blocks with all those shorter runners. I would expect a tall lanky guy to be behind early, and need his longer stride to catch up. Bolt is right there at the front 20 meters into the race.
I counted 41 strides for Bolt, 45 for Gay…
There’s a revealing piece in this morning’s Times giving a breakdown of the fastest ten metre segments ever run in the 100m.
It goes like this:
0-10m 1.67 sec (Kim Collins 2004)
10-20m 1.00 sec (Bruny Surin 1999, Maurice Greene 2001, Usain Bolt 2008)
20-30m 0.89 sec (Greene 1999)
30-40m 0.85 sec (Bolt 2009)
40-50m 0.84 sec (Carl Lewis 1991, Frankie Fredericks 1996, Greene 1999)
50-60m 0.82 sec (Greene 1999, 2000)
60-70m 0.81 sec (Bolt 2009)
70-80m 0.80 sec (Bolt 2009)
80-90m 0.83 sec (Bolt 2009)
90-100m 0.83 sec (Bolt 2009)
Therefore the fastest 100m never run, if you like, comes out at 9.34 secs.
While Bolt might have some difficulty matching the time for Collins’ first 10 metres, other factors such as improvement with age from 22 up to his late 20s, a quicker track, and maybe a more helpful tailwind might conceivably give Bolt an opportunity to get near 9.34.
Remarkable.
So is he hitting the brakes or running out of gas?
I dunno, but I certainly think he needs to stop taking it easy from 40m to 60m.
Is there a 10m breakup of Bolt’s 9.58 race available somewhere? That would give us a better idea of what he is capable of. It appears that breaking 9.5 is within his reach which would be an absolutely astonishing achievement. And you have to wonder how long it will take for the rest of humanity to catch up. Bolt is around 15 tenths of a second ahead of the field and historically it would require around 15 years to shave the record by that much. But that process isn’t linear and the world record progressionshows a long period of a couple of decades where the record was stuck in the 9.9’s. Whatever final record Bolt sets could last for several decades.
From the IAAF (PDF).
Reaction time t10 t20 t30 t40 t50 t60 t70 t80 t90 t100
Bolt 0,146 1,89 2,88 3,78 4,64 5,47 6,29 7,10 7,92 8,75 9,58
Bolt’s split times for his ten segments of the Berlin 100m final are therefore as follows:
1.89
0.99
0.90
0.86
0.83
0.82
0.81
0.82
0.83
0.83
9.58
I note a couple of small differences here from the Times figures quoted upthread. The IAAF has Bolt slower by 0.01 from 30-40m, and slower by 0.02 from 70-80m. Because the newspaper article doesn’t give all of his split times for the race, it is unclear where this 0.03 shortfall is rectified in the IAAF statistics.
I believe 100m runners are all slowing down over the final 30m. It’s just some slow down more than others. Or so I’ve heard commentators say numerous times.
Late to the thread … But this was so exciting and shocking, and I can’t believe how relatively little media coverage it’s getting. This is one of the most amazing sports accomplishments ever. I didn’t even see it live–I had it on TV, but I was doing other things at that moment, and didn’t feel the need to watch a race that was such a foregone conclusion (victor-wise). But I heard it from the next room, and the time announcement went through my body like an electric shock. “Did he say 9.5 something?” I asked my kids–who, of course, weren’t listening, so I had to go in and listen to five minutes of analysis before they finally replayed the race. What an incredible performance!
Bit of a hijack, but I don’t want to start a new thread. I notice that a lot of the American athletes are NCAA champions. Athletics is a big money sport these days, particularly in Europe. Do the NCAA athletes participate in Europe but not take money, or is there some dispensation allowing them to earn prize money? Or do they not take part in the European money events?
Why would 100m sprinters slow down at the end? I thought fatigue didn’t play any role over that distance. I am not an expert but it did appear that Bolt was relaxing just a little bit in the final stretches of this race. Or at least not giving it his full effort; understandable since he was clearly winning.
Looking at those numbers, if Bolt could maintain a 0.81 time over the last 20m, he could shave .04 seconds. The big scope for improvement of course comes from that first 10m where he is a full 0.22 below the best, though of course his size makes it highly unlikely he could ever match Collins. However if he can shave just .05 in the first 10m and a total of .04 in the last 20m that would be enough to break the 9.50 barrier.
These sports scientists seem to know what they are talking about.
This is an analysis of the Beijing 100 metres final. The author states that a sprinter ‘typically hits peak somewhere between 50 and 60m, but then slows progressively. Bolt’s huge victory [in Beijing] was created thanks to his incredible 50m stint between 40m and 90m, where he never dropped below 42km/hour’.
Bolt’s split times for Berlin show him hitting peak between 60 and 70m, and then falling only by 0.2 over the final 30m.
The IAAF link (post #33) also shows the Berlin splits for bronze medallist Asafa Powell. These come out at:
1.87
1.03
0.92
0.88
0.85
0.84
0.84
0.85
0.86
0.90
9.84
Powell peaks between 50 and 60m, maintains that for 10m, and then slows by 0.6 over the final 30m. I’m confident that analysis of any championship 100m race would reveal a similar pattern to that exhibited by Bolt and Powell, some slowing more than others in the final 30m.
Bolt looked a little tired to me after the 200m semis last night, and he told the interviewer that much. I don’t think he’ll shave much off his world record today - maybe he’ll restrict himself to lowering it by a couple of hundredths.
My mistake.
Clearly, Bolt decided to opt for symmetry. Having lowered the 100m world record by 0.11, he thought he’d do the same to the 200m world record.
Difficult to know what else to say, really. He’s just on a different planet to any other sprinter who ever lived.
If he wanted symmetry, he’d have lowered the 200m time by 0.22 seconds.
Slacker.