Why they rank here
The clearest number one in the sport's history. Bolt won the 100m and 200m at three consecutive Olympics — Beijing 2008, London 2012 and Rio 2016 — a sprint treble no one else has come close to, finishing with eight Olympic golds and eleven world titles. His 2009 World Championships in Berlin produced the two most extraordinary marks in track: 9.58 for 100m and 19.19 for 200m, both improved from his own records and both still untouched more than fifteen years later. He anchored Jamaica's 4x100m to 36.84 in 2012, another surviving world record. Beyond the numbers, Bolt did what no athlete had managed since Owens — he made track and field appointment television across the planet, filling stadiums and drawing hundreds of millions to the 100m final. He lost only a handful of finals in his prime and never lost one that mattered on the biggest stage. The margin at the top of any athletics ranking is his.
Career profile
Each bar shows how this athlete compares with the strongest in our all-time list for that metric.
Head-to-head
Compare career numbers side by side.