As Usain Bolt fulfilled his final media duties inside the Bird’s Nest stadium after winning 100m gold, with cleaners tidying around him and a security team sweeping the infield, a fan draped in the Jamaican flag screamed: ‘Yes Usain Bolt, thank you man!’ Over the years Bolt’s victories on the global stage, now nine World Championships and six Olympic gold medals, have inspired awe and disbelief but never such an outpouring of gratitude. Talk of him saving the sport by beating one doper in Justin Gatlin might be a tad overstated. After all, there are still 66 convicted drugs cheats in Beijing and four of them took up a lane in the 100m final alone. It will take considerably more than 9.79sec, Bolt’s winning time, to solve a problem of that magnitude.Reigning world and Olympic champion Usain Bolt won in 9.79 seconds in Beijing on SundayAmerican sprinter Justin Gatlin was unbeaten in 28 races prior to the final but could not remain aheadGatlin finished on 9.80 with fellow American Trayvon Bromell and Canada's Andre de Grasse sharing bronze
The winning margin was just 0.01sec, with _ taking silver in 9.80sec, but it was probably the most symbolically important hundredth of a second in athletics history.