I was asked several times tonight what is Usain Bolt’s Top speed in MPH? (miles per hour)
Remember, I am in London so we are using the Imperial system here, not SI.
The answer is 27.794 mph (miles per hour)
How did I deduct this?
Easy, his fastest recorded split was a 20 meter split of 1.61 seconds from the 2009 Berlin World Championships, en route to a 9.58 world record. (Click here for the IAAF Biomechanical analysis in PDF)
That makes a 0.805 10 meter split or 44.720 Km/hr or 27.794 Mph.
It will be a long time until we see a 30 mph sprinter.
Remember when the Holy Grail was 0.83 seconds per 10 meter split?
Even the old “record” of 0.82 seconds per 10 meters translates to “only” 43.90 Km per hour. So 44 Km/hr is quite a feet.
In comparison, a cheetah can attain short bursts of speed well over 100 km/hr (62 mph), the American quarter horse has reached 88 km/hr (55 mph), and greyhounds can reach 70 km/hr (43 mph). So 44 is “slow”.
Jimson Lee
Latest posts by Jimson Lee (see all)
Intresting. I’d love to see the MPH speeds of other Olympians like Gatlin, Blake, and Powell to name a few. I have a few questions…
1.Is there biomechanical anaylis(I can’t spell at 3 AM) of 2011 WC’s?
2.Is it possible to take 10m splits from video?
3.Are you seeing the 100m final live?
4.Who do you think will medal in the 100?200?
I’m pretty excited for London…
Jimson you have splits for final 100m men¿
Jamaica is No.1 especially having the worlds fastest human Usain Bolt.
Usain Bolt rocks especially for my country Jamaica.
that is pretty slow then. i can reach speeds of up to 30mph easy. these ‘athletes’. where do they find them?
Jimson, Do you know which 20m of the race the segment was taken from?