How the world’s media reported Bolt’s triumph
SOME of the world’s leading media houses gave top billing to Jamaican Usain Bolt’s victory in the 100m at the IAAF World Championships in Beijing, China, yesterday.
Here are a few of what we were able to capture from their websites.
‘Bolt stuns the world to take gold,’ said the BBC.
German newspaper Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung was direct, stating in German: ‘Der richtige Sieger’, which, translated to English, says: ‘The correct winner’.
German publication Die Zeit said: ‘Usain Bolt is World Champion again’, while France’s Le Monde proclaimed: ‘Et Usain Bolt surgit au moment décisif’, which in English is: ‘And Usain Bolt arises at the decisive moment’.
The Sydney Morning Herald’s Michael Gleeson, under the headline ‘Usain Bolt wins 100 metres title, Justin Gatlin second’, wrote: “Usain Bolt has saved his sport from its own grubby self. In the finest performance of his remarkable career the world’s fastest man won gold in the 100m at the World Athletics Championships here on Sunday at a time when his sport needed him most.
“The greatest athlete of this generation, if not every generation, overcame the dominant sprinter of the year.
“In the race that offered a battle between the good and the bad, the clean and the dirty, the good and the clean won. True, the bad and the dirty ran second, but second in this race was a lot further than the hundredth of a second that separated Usain Bolt from the twice-banned Justin Gatlin.
“Embarrassment was thus stunningly, breathtakingly averted. Bolt overpowered Gatlin to win in 9.79s. Gatlin was at his shoulder but dipped too early, crossing the line in 9.80 seconds. Canadian Andre de Grasse ran third in 9.92s.”
American CNN shouted: ‘Boom! Usain Bolt strikes again’.