Usain Bolt 'not worried' about his world records falling to current crop of track's biggest stars

Bolt isn't worried he'll see his records in the 100 or 200 fall any time soon

The 2025 World Athletics Championships begin on Saturday in Tokyo as the world's best track and field athletes compete in the biggest event on the calendar in a non-Olympic year. The headlining races, as has long been the case, will be the 100- and 200-meter competitions. On the men's side, Americans Noah Lyles and Kenny Bednarek boast quite the rivalry in both events, and Jamaican sprinters Kishane Thompson and Oblique Seville are top threats in the 100. 

All of them are chasing a ghost that they may never catch. Usain Bolt's world records of 9.58 seconds in the 100 and 19.19 in the 200 remain more than 15 years after he set those marks at the 2009 World Championships in Berlin. At a Puma event in Tokyo prior to this year's worlds, Bolt offered a blunt response when asked if he worries that his records will fall anytime soon. 

"No, I'm not worried," Bolt said, per the Associated Press. "I think the talent is there, there will be talented athletes coming up, and they will do well. But at this present moment, I don't see any athlete able to break the record, so not worried."

No one has truly threatened Bolt's records in recent years,. Lyles' best in the 200 is a 19.31 and Thompson's best in the 100 is 9.75, both more than a tenth slower than Bolt's world records. Shaving that kind of time off a personal best is incredibly difficult, and Bolt isn't concerned that he'll be knocked off the top of the history books in the immediate future. 

Eventually, the greatest sprinter of all time knows he will cede his place at the top, but he just doesn't see anyone that can do it just yet. 

"Everything evolves in life, people trying to get better, trying to get faster," he said. "It's not going to be a surprise if it actually happens."

The continued improvements in technology and the way athletes continue to grow and evolve make it a near-certainty that at some point someone will run faster than Bolt did. But it's been more than 15 years since his peak, and that talent hasn't appeared just yet; his generational abilities set a bar few can even dream of reaching.