Windhoek
The Gleaner, one of Jamaica’s biggest daily broadsheets, recently ranked and authoritatively maintained that Namibia’s sprint legend, Frank Fredericks, is one of the greatest ever 200m athletes of all time.
Weighing and analyzing Usain Bolt’s dominance in both the 100m and 200m events over the years and also touching on the probabilities of him dominating further at this year’s Olympic Games in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil – the newspaper did however admit that Bolt still has one more item to tick off on his list of achievements before fully embellishing his position as the greatest 200m athlete of all time.
Having already solidified his position as the world’s greatest, fastest and still the best man in the 100m event, the Jamaican three-time World champion and two-time defending Olympic champion is yet to fully accomplish the same status in the 200m event – and will not completely enjoy the spotlight in that arena until he breaks Fredericks’ 200m world indoor all-time record of 19.92 seconds set in 1996.
But Bolt, who has never run the 200m race indoors through his career, does not appear to be far from achieving some success in that area. Back in 2014, Bolt was the man who tumbled Fredericks’ 18-year-old 100m World indoor record of 10.5 seconds (set in 1996) when he replaced it with a remarkable 9.98 seconds.
As it stands, Bolt’s record time of 9.98 seconds is the best time ever recorded indoors in athletics history, but it is yet to be seen if he will attain the same feat in the 200m indoor event.
One of the greatest 200m athletes of all time
Fredericks, a four-time Olympic silver medallist and multiple World Championships, World Indoor Championships, All-Africa Games and Commonwealth Games gold medallist, also holds the second most sub-20’s in the 200m race, having ran under 20 seconds on 24 occasions, while third in line on the 200m sub-20 list is American great Michael Johnson with 23. Bolt has the most sub-20’s, having ran it on 32 occasions.
The Namibian also remains the oldest man to have ever broken 20 seconds for the 200m, when he won the 200m in a time of 19.99 seconds at the age of 34 years 283 days in 2002. He also holds the third-fastest non-winning time for the 200m, clocking 19.68 seconds at the 1996 Olympics in Atlanta, USA.