(Photo: Reuters/Eddie Keogh)Jamaica's Usain Bolt strikes his famous pose with his gold medal at the men's 200m victory ceremony during the London 2012 Olympic Games at the Olympic Stadium August 9, 2012.Usain Bolt stormed to a historic victory in the men's 200M event at the London 2012 Olympic Games on Thursday. Millions saw the stunning win live, and hundreds of thousands more have seen videos of his performance on the Internet.
The win meant Bolt became the first person ever to defend the men's 200 meter Olympic title. The popular sprinter won in a super fast time of 19.32 seconds just outside the Olympic record.
The Jamaican defeated countryman Yohan Blake for the second time in recent days, who ran Bolt close with a time of 19.44 seconds.
The race was clearly between Bolt and Blake with the rest of the field faltering way back behind the two fastest people in the world. However, Bolt's immense power showed and with still 20 meters to go he glanced back to see Blake struggling behind him and eased up over the line. Arguably if Bolt did not ease up over the final part of the race he could have set yet another Olympic record time on Thursday.
The result means Jamaica amazingly claimed all three medals, taking the top three places, with Warren Weir claiming bronze with 19.84 seconds. All three times were world class, and the clean sweep means Jamaica become only the second nation to ever whitewash the men's 200M event.
Bolt also becomes the first person ever to defend the 200 meters Olympic title. America's legendary sprinter Carl Lewis, who incidentally is the only other person apart from Bolt to successfully defend the men's 100 meter sprint Olympic title, was unable to defend his 200 meter title. Lewis won gold in the 200 meters in Los Angeles in 1984 only to lose out by just 0.04 seconds to Joseph DeLoach of the United States in Seoul in 1988.
Other sprinters close to defending the 200 meter title have been Donald Quarrie of Jamaica who only managed a bronze medal when he was attempting to defend his title. He finished just a tenth of a second behind Pietro Mennea of Italy. In Athens in 2004 Shawn Crawford of the United States won gold in the 200 meters only to lose in 2008 in Beijing as Usain Bolt sped past him.
Bolt has already broken the 100M sprint Olympic record on Sunday night in London by running 9.63 seconds.
Following today's 200 meter final he will also be taking part in the 4x100 meter relay event in the coming days as the London 2012 Olympics draws to an end with the closing ceremony scheduled for Sunday.
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