Despite the impressiveness of the sprints run by Usain Bolt, the question naturally arises of why he
has not been able to break the 100 m sprint world record he set in Berlin (2009). In this paper, we
address such a query by considering Bolt’s condition and the prevailing circumstances during the
sprints that took place in Beijing 2008, Berlin 2009, London 2012, Moscow 2013, Beijing 2015 and Rio
2016 3 . Using the analytical mechanical model by Hernández-Gómez et al (2013), we analyse all the
events, equating what we thought were the principal factors a priori : tailwind, weight gain and
age. Despite what one might expect about the role of age in such a high-performance athlete as Usain
Bolt, our results show that his performance has been essentially constant from Beijing 2009 to Rio
2016, with the mass gain and tailwind conditions making the difference in the run times he has
achieved since Berlin 2009. Actually, our analysis suggests that in equal mass an…