Bolt has now run the 100 metres in 9.58 and the 200 metres in 19.19, world records beyond the imagination of everyone. The man, who stands 6-foot-5, has been leaving short sprinters in his dust for the last two years.
How does the Jamaican's huge frame help him run so fast, and why haven’t there been more tall sprinters?
He's easy to spot on the track, Goliath-ing over his human-scale opponents. The starting blocks cramp his frame. As he kneels for the gun, his rump rises high above his competitors.
Once the race starts, he looks like a high-schooler who lied about his age to win the blue riband event. Bolt takes 40 to 41 strides in a 100-metre race. Others take up many more, some more than 50.
If Bolt's long legs give him such an edge, why haven't there been more tall sprinters?
Traditionally, height has been seen as a detriment to sprinting. The formula for speed is stride length times stride rate.
If the longest legs always won the race, then Yao Ming would have the world record in the 100, and lions wouldn't eat giraffes.
Gangly guys, the thinking has always gone, don't win short races because they can't master the smooth form required to generate rapid leg turnover.
Sprinters are supposed to be compact and muscular: think Ben Johnson or Ato Boldon.
Big guys have physics working against them. This simply means, it’s hard to produce enough power to overcome the drag of a big body.
A Journal of Sports Science and Medicine study, which may now need to be rewritten, found that world champion sprinters ranged between 5-foot-9 at the low end to 6-foot-3 at the absolute max.
Unlike distance runners, sprinters do need to be big and strong enough to generate explosive speed. That's why 5-foot-9 has traditionally been the minimum height, whereas the elite distance runner Haile Gebrselassie is a mere 5-foot-3.
That range covers all the recent gold medalists, from Maurice Greene to Linford Christie. But not Usain Bolt.
Yet in the 100 metres, the tall guy ran away from his classically designed competitors, winning by such a wide margin and lowered the mark to a science-fiction-y 9.36 seconds Bolt is a hybrid never before seen in track and field: a spidery giant whose legs generate the propulsive power of a cannonball-thighed running back.
So will the starting blocks at future championships be filled by giants? Probably not.
One reason we've never seen such a tall sprinter is that athletes who combine height and coordination usually go out for more glamorous, high-paying sports.
Jamaicans regard sprinters the way the French regard wine: as a leading export, and a source of national identity.
Asafa Powell, who held the world record before Bolt, owns six cars and has been awarded the country's Order of Distinction.
America's Tyson Gay, by contrast, is less well-known than pretty much every NBA benchwarmer.
While Bolt's amazing feat likely won't inspire the next generation of Kobe Bryants to exchange their hightops for track spikes, he will undoubtedly be an inspiration to his fellow countrymen.
Bolt has confessed that his first love was cricket, but his victory in the 100 made him a hero in a way the bat and ball never could have.
He could be a one-off athletic freak, defying Newtonian physics, or the prototype for a new breed of bigger, faster sprinters.
We may just find out in years to come if long-legged Jamaicans drop their cricket bats and head for the track.
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