BERLIN — Usain Bolt added a new dimension Sunday night to the pre-race ritual that has made him as much of a crowd pleaser as a world beater.
Bolt struck his trademark lightning-bolt pose when the public address announcer introduced him before the 100-meter final at the World Track and Field Championships.
Just before getting into the blocks, Bolt made a gesture like the whoosh of a supersonic jet taking off.
And then he took his sport on a warp-speed ride into a new dimension, redefining the standards of the most basic human athletic pursuit, running as fast as one can over a measured distance.
In the last 88 years, no one has broken the 100-meter world record by a larger margin than the 22-year-old Jamaican did with his time of 9.58 seconds.
On a warm night with a 2 mph tail wind, Bolt sheared .11 of a second from the record of 9.69 he set in winning the 2008 Olympic gold medal, which had made him the first under 9.7.
"He has taken not just this sport but sport in general to a new place," said Ato Boldon, the four-time Olympic sprint medalist and NBC commentator.
"We have to rethink everything we know about human performance. I used to talk about times in the area of 9-low as some kind of unicorn-like fantasy, but he has made fantasy into reality."
This was Bob Beamon breaking the long jump world record by more than two feet at the 1968 Olympics, Wilt Chamberlain scoring 100 points in an NBA game, Michael Phelps winning his eighth gold medal -- all feats that seemed practically impossible before they occurred.
As many expected, Bolt turned his much-hyped duel with Tyson Gay of the United States into a battle between one man and history, even though reigning world champion Gay ran an exceptional race to finish second in 9.71. That is the third-fastest time in history, beaten only by Bolt's two world records.
Former world-record holder Asafa Powell of Jamaica was third in 9.84.
"I never thought that I would see this even if I lived to be 100," said Mel Rosen, 81, the 1992 U.S. Olympic men's track coach. "We have always thought if you were going to be a great sprinter, to get even better you had to have an incredible stride length or turnover. Bolt is the first to have both."
Bolt -- unusually tall for a sprinter -- has managed to uncoil that body from the blocks more efficiently than anyone ever imagined possible for a runner of 6 feet 5.
