50 free Usain Bolt trivia questions with answers — sports quiz, new questions added Aug 2026.
Usain Bolt is the fastest human ever timed, holder of the 100 m, 200 m and 4 x 100 m world records and the only sprinter to win the Olympic 100 and 200 at three consecutive Games. This quiz covers the whole story: the cricket-mad boy from Sherwood Content, the practical joke that got him detained by police, the world junior title won with his shoes on the wrong feet, coach Glen Mills, the world records in New York, Beijing and Berlin, the chest-slap celebration, the Daegu false start, the London and Rio doubles, the stripped relay gold, the bronze in his farewell race and the strange afterlives as a footballer, scooter entrepreneur and fraud victim. Easy questions ask which country he ran for and his 100 m world record; harder ones cover the Berlin Wall segment, the size of his scoliosis and who beat him in his last final. It suits athletics fans, Olympic trivia buffs, and quiz nights that want a sports round everyone can enjoy. Every answer has been checked against the Wikipedia articles on Bolt and his championship races, and each question shows its source once you have answered.
30 of 50 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01Usain Bolt is the world record holder in the 100 m, the 200 m and which other event?
4 × 100 m relay
He is also an eight-time Olympic gold medallist and widely regarded as the greatest sprinter of all time.
Q 02What is Bolt's 100 m world record, set in 2009?
9.58
It was the biggest improvement on the record since electronic timing began.
Q 03What is Bolt's 200 m world record, also set in 2009?
19.19
It shaved 0.11 seconds off the 19.30 he had run at the Beijing Olympics the year before.
Q 04Bolt is the only sprinter to win the Olympic 100 m and 200 m titles at how many consecutive Games?
Three
The "triple-triple" of Beijing, London and Rio was later reduced when the 2008 relay gold was stripped for a teammate's doping.
Q 05In which small Jamaican town was Bolt born on 21 August 1986?
Sherwood Content
His parents ran the local grocery store, and he grew up playing cricket and football in the street with his brother Sadiki.
Q 06A coach in which sport at Bolt's high school first urged him to try athletics?
Cricket
Bolt himself said that as a child he never really thought about anything other than sports.
Q 07As a teenager Bolt was detained by police for what prank before the CARIFTA Trials?
Hiding in a van instead of preparing for a final
The community blamed his coach Pablo McNeil, but Bolt went on to set championship records at the Games anyway.
Q 08What did the nervous 15-year-old Bolt do before winning the 200 m at the 2002 World Juniors?
Put his shoes on the wrong feet
He noticed in time, won, and vowed never to let pre-race nerves affect him again; he was the youngest world-junior gold medallist ever.
Q 09How tall had Bolt grown by the age of 15?
1.95 metres (6 ft 5 in)
His height made him physically stand out among his peers, and later helped produce his enormous stride.
Q 10Which former Jamaican Prime Minister arranged for the young Bolt to move to Kingston to train?
P. J. Patterson
He trained at the University of Technology, Jamaica, and later refused every American college scholarship offered to him.
Q 11In 2004 Bolt became the first junior to break 20 s for 200 m, with what time?
19.93
He held the world under-20 and under-18 records for the distance until Erriyon Knighton surpassed them in 2021.
Q 12Which coach began working with Bolt in 2005 and guided him through his entire record-breaking career?
Glen Mills
He wanted Bolt to move up to the 400 m and only let him try the 100 m after Bolt broke the Jamaican 200 m record.
Q 13At the Athens 2004 Olympics, his Games debut, how did Bolt fare in the 200 m?
Eliminated in round one
Hampered by a leg injury he ran only 21.05 seconds.
Q 21Why was Jamaica stripped of its Beijing 2008 4 × 100 m relay gold in January 2017?
A retested sample from Nesta Carter was positive for a banned substance
The team had run 37.10, a world record at the time.
Q 22Bolt's still-standing 100 m world record came in the 2009 World Championship final in which city?
Berlin
The race was billed as "Das Duell" against Tyson Gay, in the stadium where Jesse Owens had starred 73 years earlier.
Q 23What unusual gift did the host city's mayor present to Bolt after the 2009 World Championships?
Q 14Whose 36-year-old Jamaican 200 m record did Bolt break in 2007 to earn the right to run the 100 m?
Don Quarrie
His 19.75 beat the mark by 0.11 seconds, and his coach kept his side of the bargain.
Q 15Where did Bolt set his first 100 m world record, 9.72, on 31 May 2008?
Icahn Stadium, New York
It was only his fifth senior race over the distance; Tyson Gay, second, said "it looked like his knees were going past my face".
Q 16Whose 100 m world record of 9.74 did Bolt take in 2008?
Asafa Powell
The compatriot had set it in Rieti, Italy, the previous year, and later anchored Bolt's relay teams.
Q 17Bolt won the Beijing 2008 Olympic 100 m in 9.69 despite doing what before the line?
Slowing down to celebrate, with a shoelace untied
Analysts at the University of Oslo estimated he could have run about 9.55 had he not eased up.
Q 18Which IOC president condemned Bolt's chest-slapping Beijing celebration as disrespectful?
Jacques Rogge
Bolt replied: "I wasn't bragging. When I saw I wasn't covered, I was just happy."
Q 19Whose 200 m world record of 19.32, set at Atlanta 1996, did Bolt break in Beijing?
Michael Johnson
Johnson had predicted Bolt would win gold but that his record would survive; Bolt ran 19.30 into a headwind.
Q 20Bolt's Beijing double made him the first man to hold both sprint world records since what became mandatory?
Fully automatic timing
He was also the first sprinter since Don Quarrie to hold the 100 m and 200 m records simultaneously.
A three-ton section of the old Wall
Klaus Wowereit said Bolt had shown "one can tear down walls that had been considered as insurmountable".
Q 24What happened to Bolt in the 100 m final at the 2011 World Championships in Daegu?
He was disqualified for a false start
It was the highest-profile casualty of the new one-false-start rule, and Kim Collins called it "a sad night for athletics".
Q 25Who won the 100 m in Daegu after Bolt's disqualification?
Yohan Blake
The compatriot beat Bolt again at the 2012 Jamaican trials before taking silver behind him in London.
Q 26What time did Bolt run to win the 100 m at the 2012 Olympics?
9.63
It was an Olympic record, and he defended his 200 m title too, leading a Jamaican podium sweep.
Q 27By how much did Jamaica lower the 4 × 100 m relay world record to 36.84 in 2012?
Two tenths of a second
Bolt, Nesta Carter, Michael Frater and a fourth Jamaican knocked two tenths off their previous mark from 2011.
Q 28At the 2015 World Championships in Beijing, Bolt beat Justin Gatlin in the 100 m by how much?
One hundredth of a second
Gatlin had dominated the sprints during Bolt's injury-hit season, holding seven of the year's ten fastest times.
Q 29What time did Bolt run to win his third Olympic 100 m title in Rio in 2016?
9.81
He finished his Olympic career with a 100 percent win record in finals.
Q 30Where did Bolt finish in his final individual race, the 100 m at the 2017 World Championships in London?
Third
Justin Gatlin won in 9.92 and Christian Coleman took silver in 9.94, a hundredth ahead of Bolt.