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Usain Bolt names heir to his 100m World Record
Reading Time: 2min | Fri. 15.08.25. | 21:06
The 24-year-old last month outpaced American Noah Lyles to win the London Diamond League 100m in 9.86 seconds
Sprint legend Usain Bolt has named fellow Jamaican Oblique Seville as the man capable of breaking his long-standing 100m world record.
The eight-time Olympic champion, who stunned the world with a 9.58-second run at the 2009 World Championships in Berlin, believes Seville has the talent to restore Jamaica to the top of men’s sprinting, only if he can stay healthy.
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“I feel like Oblique can do it. If he can stay fit during the season and get it right, I feel he can do it, because I am sure there is something there, the ability to do it. Some of the time, Oblique can be fragile… but if he’s doing enough work, he can do it,” Bolt told The Fix Podcast.
Seville, 24, has been one of Jamaica’s brightest sprint hopes in recent years.
In July, he outpaced American Noah Lyles to win the London Diamond League 100m in 9.86 seconds at the London Stadium.
He looked on course for a medal at the Paris 2024 Olympics, but a groin injury flared in the final 20 metres of the 100m final, relegating him to eighth place while Lyles took gold.
“Oblique can do it. If he can stay fit through the season and get it right, he can do it because I’m sure there’s something there, the ability to do it,” Bolt reaffirmed.
Speaking to The Gleaner in December, Seville expressed his determination to rebound in 2025.
“I want to achieve great things in 2025. I think I had expected to have gotten a medal, so for next season, my aim is to be in the top three in everything that I am doing. If I am able to get fit and up to standards, I know I will have no problems with competing,” he said.
Seville will be targeting the podium at the 2025 World Athletics Championships in Tokyo next month as he seeks redemption for last year’s disappointment. He skipped the 100m in Poland this weekend and is expected to be in top form by September.
Bolt first announced himself to the world with double sprint gold at the 2008 Beijing Olympics, breaking the then-100m world record with a 9.69-second run, famously easing up before the finish line.
He then rewrote history in Berlin a year later, slicing 0.11 seconds off his mark to set the current world record of 9.58 seconds.
Since then, no sprinter has dipped below 9.70 seconds.
