You might have thought that setting the world records for both the 100m and 200m events would be enough to keep any athlete happy for a significant amount of time. However, some individuals will never be content no matter how much success comes their way.

One such individual is Usain Bolt, the twenty-two year old sprinter from Jamaica, who currently holds the two world records.

He was a star at the Olympic Games in Beijing earlier this year, running the 100m event in just 9.69 seconds. Bolt also successfully led the Jamaican 4x100m sprint relay team to victory in the Olympic event. In addition he broke the record set by Michael Johnson for the 200m event (19.32 seconds) in the final, with a new record time of 19.30 seconds.

Bolt now believes that he will be able to run 100m in just 9.52 seconds but, before fulfilling this ambition, he must “make progress in different areas”. The one area highlighted by the athlete as being relatively weak at the moment is the start of the race.

If the athlete continues to improve, his coach, Glenn Mills, believes that he may be able to run 200m in well under 19 seconds, as long as the conditions are similar to those seen in Beijing.

Bolt’s aims may seem ambitious to many people but recently, scientists found that male sprinters are, theoretically at least, physically able to run 100m in 9.48 seconds. Furthermore, the scientists, who had performed research at Stanford University, believe that top athletes could run 200m in 18.63 seconds.