Will Usain Bolt Win the 100m World Championships?

There’s an expression:

In order to win, you don’t have to win by 10 meters, you only have to win by a nose.

So the question is, who does Usain have to beat to win the 2017 World Championships?

By looking at the past majors (Olympics and World Champs), Bolt will need to run in the 9.8’s to win, assuming no one else can run 9.8 under the same conditions.

And that is after running 2 rounds, with the semi-final just 2 hours prior.

As you can see from the above chart, Usain’s margin of victory is getting slimmer and slimmer at each major. But he always pull though, somehow.  After a mediocre season, he manages to run and win a mediocre race (under Bolt’s standards), goes to Germany for treatment, then comes back

I think his mastery of “round management” is the key, but his aura of confidence as he struts around like a proud peacock.

I’ve always said you need 3-5 400m races to get ready for peak racing, and 5-7 races for a 100m race.  Bolt will be using these 3 races in two days to get the kinks out.

Whatever his secret is, it works!  How many guys can run sub-10 2 hours apart?

Bolt just needs to piece together one race, only once, one last time only, and go through the Tom Tellez’ 5 Phases of the 100m Sprint.

Whatever the outcome, I’ll be glued to my seat on Saturday August 3rd.  Well, maybe standing screaming my head off, but I’ll be watching.