Highlights of 2009: Usain Bolt

In an era of international multi-channel TV, wall-to-wall press complete with pull-out supplements, up-to-the-minute internet news, video on demand, and all the other trappings of modern media coverage, sports events are covered in more detail than ever before. Whereas once a sporting event was a one-off, not repeated, now each event is broadcast and re-broadcast, analysed and discussed at length. When something special happens, it is seen by hundreds of millions around the world.

This means that it is now a rare sporting event that truly takes the breath away. Some are special, and live long in the memory, but few truly stun. Fans have seen seemingly unbreakable records broken, underdogs overcome the most improbable odds, and stars fall from grace and then return when all seemed lost. They know all the sporting narratives, and can see them coming a mile off.

Yet 2009 brought at least two moments that genuinely took the breath away, that made fans all around the world turn to each other to check that their eyes did not deceive them. Both moments came within days of each other, and belonged to one man, Usain Bolt.

It did not matter that the tall Jamaican had performed this feat in Beijing twelve months before, when he joyfully shattered world records in the 100 and 200 metres on his way to seemingly effortless wins. As the final of the 100 metres at this summer's World Championships in Berlin approached, most expected Bolt to win, and a world record seemed a distinct possibility. That he achieved these was not a surprise. It was the margin of the victory and the record, the nonchalance with which Bolt seemed to do it. Eleven hundredths of a second came off a record that had itself seemed unbelievable in China the year before. His rival, Tyson Gay, ran the third fastest time in history, yet had to settle for silver, and hardly a mention in the media.

Bolt making history again in the 100 metres final

Days later, with anticipation at an even higher level after his masterclass in the 100 metres, Bolt repeated the feat in the 200 metres, again taking eleven hundredths off his own record.

Bolt's remarkable rise has inevitably, and rightly, raised doubts. In this day and age, can one man really break those records without some form of cheating, whether it be steroids, blood doping, or something else that the testers have yet to discover? So far however, Bolt appears clean, and there has been no cause for suspicion, other than his success. Time should tell however, it usually does.

It is a sign of how remarkable his achievements are however, that he has single-handedly revived interest in athletics. With viewing figures down, the sport's credibility damaged by a string of scandals, the IAAF have been plotting ways to rejuvenate the sport with shorter-format events inspired by the likes of Twenty20 cricket and other innovations. Whilst these will still go ahead, Bolt has proven that the biggest draw to any sport is drama and spectacle, and so long as he keeps winning titles in his trademark laid-back style, the fans will keep coming back, if only to see just how fast he can go.