Usain Bolt shocked by Yohan Blake's 100m Olympic trials win

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Yohan Blake (left) celebrates after crossing the finish line ahead of current world-record holder Usain Bolt (right)

Usain Bolt suffered a major upset in the 100m final at the Jamaican Olympic trials as world champion Yohan Blake won in a time of 9.75 seconds.

Olympic champion Bolt was second in 9.86, with former world record holder Asafa Powell third in 9.88.

Blake's time - the fastest in the world this year - was a new personal best and makes him the fourth fastest man of all time.

The result sees all three men qualify for the London 2012 Olympics.

Blake's time means the only faster men in the world are Bolt, who holds the world record of 9.58, American Tyson Gay, who has run 9.69, and Powell, whose quickest time is 9.72.

"No pressure at all... everything is good. I'm just fortunate," Blake said after beating his personal best of 9.82. "I'm the national champion of Jamaica now, I go into the Olympics like this."

Bolt was slow out of the blocks in both the final and semi-final and said afterwards of his start: "I had to ignore it. I had trouble getting out, but I kept feeling like I could not give up."

It was the first time Bolt and Blake had faced each other since Blake took the world title in Daegu last year, after the Olympic champion was disqualified for a false start.

Bolt, who won Olympic gold in the 100m, 200m and 4x100m relay at the 2008 Games in Beijing, had held the previous fastest time in the world this year after clocking 9.76 in Rome last month.

Powell tweeted:external-link "Tore my groin on the first round of the trials. Your strength and prayers willed me through the pain and on to the London Olympics."

In the semi-finals, it was Powell who clocked the fastest time of 9.92 seconds, with Blake third in the same race, behind Nesta Carter.

After a slow start Bolt eventually took the lead midway through his semi-final and won in 10.01, nosing out Michael Frater on 10.02.

In the women's 100m final, defending Olympic champion Shelly-Ann Fraser-Pryce broke the Jamaican record with a time of 10.70 seconds, with Veronica Campbell-Brown second and Kerron Stewart third.

Nearly 400 Jamaican athletes have been competing for about 60 berths in London in what could be the largest athletics delegation ever sent to an Olympics by the Caribbean nation.

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  • #24 why do you say we have no testing agency, WADA says we do, it was set up in 2008. Bolt and Blake train on a world class track built by a German company at the University of the West Indies. The anti doping agency has run numerous tests and caught Jamaican athletes. Jamaicans have been sprinting and winning since 1948. Are you saying all our medalists are drugged up, sounds like sour grapes

  • #15 Don't watch the Olympics then!....... And what makes you think you can speak for everyone?

  • Hmmm, a quick Google later yields a comment made back in 2008 by the German sprinter:

    http://grg51.typepad.com/steroid_nation/2008/08/german-olympic.html

    I would've thought any foul play would have been exposed by now. Sorry SwampPuppet, but one comment by a competitor, four years ago, isn't enough in my opinion to question the integrity of these sportsmen.

  • @51 I would much rather see the worlds best get a 1st, 2nd and 3rd than someone else sneaking in there just because all of the slots from one country was used up

  • Man what a relay team these guys are going to have!

  • There's a common misconception that steroids make athletes faster. They don't. They allow them to train longer and harder, and recover from injuries more quickly.

    Quote: “He [Bolt] knows I work harder, much harder,” Blake said. “He has said it himself, but now he is training harder, too."

    So they both train very, very hard

  • Nobody has ever retained the Olympic 100m title on the track (Carl Lewis did so in the testing labs) so Bolt's going for an unprecedented achievement and it will be perhaps his biggest challenge yet.

    At least no silly false starts happened to rule out the big stars, I wonder if London is insured against Bolt's absence? Should be a great race anyway, just hope Gatlin doesn't figure in the medals.

  • It's amazing to look back at the progression of the 100m world record. Even as a 14-year-old boy, I "beat" the women's world record for 1922. 80 years and the world's fastest woman would have lost to a fairly average male teenager.

  • Really disappointed that all anyone can talk about is doping. Surely innocent until proven guilty still applies?

    Anyway, even though Usain didn't quite look himself, I would agree that it isn't a 'shock' as he did what he needed to qualify. He's expected to perform superhuman feats every time he steps on the track and that just isn't gonna happen. I still expect him to win in London.

  • Watching the video of the race, it's clear that Bolt isn't flat out and is more concerned with qualification than winning. Let's see how it goes in London!

  • The aim is to qualify. These athletes are training to peak at the Olympics so this result bodes well but is by no means conclusive.

    Every country has their drugs cheats but that doesn't mean all their athletes cheat.Sprinting is what Jamaica excels at, they have little or no presence in other disciplines. They're brilliant in one area why try and take that away?

  • @ 51: The IAAF rules are that a National Olympic Committee may enter up to 3 qualified athletes in each individual event if all athletes meet the A standard, or 1 athlete per event if they meet the B standard.

  • There's no conspiracy as to why Jamaica dominates sprinting. They dominate because they care about it more than anyone else. There will always be dopers but they are the minority. Bolt's success isn't in the slightest bit surprising given his physique - the only shock is that it took so long for someone of his stature to make it work. Blake is a more traditional figure. No cheating, just talent.

  • Why is doping a part of this conversation? The problem is if the nation that is dominant is not America, or England people must be doping because of course these two countries have put together have more doping violations than the rest of the world put together. get use to the fact that another country naming Jamaica is better than the entire world put together.

  • Add your comment...Eddie K-B, The Jamaicans aren't the first developing nation to dominate the world of sport. Take the Kenyan middle distance runners, the West Indian Cricket team, the Brazilian football team as three obvious examples. Furthermore, Spanish sportsmen and women have been found guilty of doping in recent years, as have Greeks, Americans, Brits and others from rich nations.

  • Are there no comments here about the race? 3 great sprinters on form before the Olympics and the publicis interested only in the admistration of the event.

  • I do not regard this result as a surprise. Bolt has not recaptured the form of his world record breaking days. He has not run anywhere near close to his world records of 2009 meanwhile Blake has proven himself to be a championship performer and has got his 100m pb down to a 'proper' fast time. Even after the worlds last year I did not regard him a threat but then he did that 19.26 in the 200m.....

  • #38 & 40
    So what is it? are you guys jealous? or is it that you want us to fail? Do you think we are two small as a nation to accomplish such feat naturally? Obviously you are upset. Sad thing is I doubt you know any thing about Jamaican and their approach to sports. Maybe you read about Jamaica but I doubt you have what it takes to understand because if you did you would not be ranting like that

  • @ Eddie K-B

    What are you talking about? There isn't general suspicion of Jamaican athletes!

    You need to remove that chip. There are plenty of people that have been suspected & caught from 'developed' countries.

    But to anyone who can see farther than the end of their nose, absence of a anti-doping body in Jamaica would be a concern.

  • #35 testing at the games is all but meaningless. The drug taking is done out-of-season when athletes carry out strength conditioning. Once the season starts, they focus on speed and technique and have no need to use steroids. Ben Johnson's mistake was due to injury about 6 weeks before Soul forcing him to undertake steroid-based strength conditioning too close to the games.

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