Every so often in history, someone emerges to defy prevailing logic and reorient held beliefs about human capacity or the environment in which we operate.

In Usain Bolt, the world has witnessed the rise of one such individual who, except perhaps United States President Barack Obama and Michael Jackson in death, is probably the most recognisable human being on the planet. For, as Donovan Bailey, the Jamaican-born Canadian athlete, has declared, there is no more room for doubt, Mr Bolt is the greatest sprinter of "all time".

We might well have concluded that at last year's Olympic Games in Beijing when Bolt stunned the world , setting, with apparent nonchalance, a new world record for the 100 metres, 9.69 seconds. A few days later, Bolt set a new world record of 19.30 for the 200 metres, erasing Michael Johnson's 19.32, which stood for a dozen years. Very few had contemplated such a savage assault on Mr Johnson's record.

Pseudo-scientific mumbo-jumbo

The matter, though, of Bolt as the 'greatest sprinter of all time' was placed firmly beyond doubt this past Sunday in Berlin in the final of the 100 metres at the World Championship, in the same city where, 73 years earlier, another black man, Jesse Owens of the US, made havoc of Adolph Hitler's pseudo-scientific mumbo jumbo of inherent Aryan superiority. Owens set a new world record for the 100 metres, 10.2 seconds.

On Sunday, Bolt established a new record of 9.58 seconds, slashing 0.11 second from the one he set in Beijing a year earlier. This latest performance needs to be placed in some perspective.

In recent history, the largest slice off the world 100 metres record was Maurice Greene's 1999 reduction of 0.05 second, from Donovan Bailey's 9.84. Usually, the runner pinches 0.01 or so from the prevailing record until Beijing when Bolt clipped 0.03 second from his own record. Then his obliteration in Berlin.

In seven decades plus, since Jesse Owens, the 100 metres record has been reduced by 0.62 second, with 0.16 second, or over a quarter of that, being accounted for by Bolt in just over a year, starting with his 9.72 in May 2008.

Gay's disappointment

For Tyson Gay, whose 9.71 in Berlin would not so long ago been a world record, Bolt's run was vindication of his belief that someone could run in the 9.5s. "... It showed a human can take it to another level," he said.

Gay's disappointment was that it was not himself, but hopes to himself get into that realm. But his real dilemma if Bailey, an astute observer of the sport, is correct is that he may not be able to catch Bolt.

"I believe that he (Bolt) has the ability to improve and to continue to take the record where, not so long ago, was thought not physically possible for a human being," Bailey wrote in a newspaper column.

We agree!

People around the world today are privileged to be alive - thanks in no small part to the advance of communications technology - to have experienced this phenomenon. We in Jamaica are far more privileged than the rest, for having someone of such sublime talent being born among us.

But there is a lesson too. Mr Bolt's talent might have gone to waste, but he worked at it.

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