Why did Usain Bolt lose the 100 m sprint at London 2017?: addendum to ‘Impact of mass gain, tailwind and age in the performance of Usain Bolt from Beijing 2008 to Rio 2016’

Abstract

The unexpected bronze medal of Usain Bolt in the 100 m final sprint at London 2017 is of great interest from the physical point of view. In Hernández-Gómez et al ( Eur. J. Phys. 38 054001), we applied our successful analytic mechanical model (Hernández-Gómez et al Eur. J. Phys. 34 1227) to trace Usain Bolt from Beijing 2008 to Rio 2016 in order to assess the impact of the runner’s mass, tailwind and even age in the performance of his 100 m sprints. In this paper, we extend the analysis by Hernández-Gómez et al ( Eur. J. Phys. 38 054001) to consider the London 2017 100 m final sprint, so as to find the facts that made Usain Bolt actually lose the first place.