Also known as “Lightning Bolt”, the eight-time Olympic gold medalist gained worldwide fame for his double sprint victory in world record times at the 2008 Beijing Olympics.

Standing 6 foot 5 inches, Usain Bolt defied the conventional wisdom that tall sprinters are disadvantaged as fast starters. In the 2008 Olympic Games, the Jamaican runner became the first man since American Carl Lewis in 1984 to win the 100 meters, 200 meters, and 4 x 100-meter relay in a single Olympics and the first ever to set world records (9.96 sec,19.30 sec, and 37.10 sec, respectively) in all three events.

At his record-breaking 9.58 100-meter sprint at the 2009 World Championships, Bolt reached a speed of 27.45mph.

Bolt published a memoir, My Story: 9:58: The World’s Fastest Man (written by Shaun Custis) in 2010. It was later expanded and reissued as The Fastest Man Alive: The True Story of Usain Bolt in 2012.