Having owned the world records in the 100 meters and the 200 meters for so long, Usain Bolt tried mashing them together yesterday in the Czech Republic, running his first 300-meter race. His time of 30.97 was the second-fastest ever, behind only the 30.85 that Michael Johnson ran in 2000.
Johnson’s mark is not a record, officially speaking, because the International Association of Athletics Federations doesn’t recognize performances in the 300 .
Earlier in the week, in Shanghai , Bolt ran the 200 in 19.76 seconds. In the 110-meter hurdles in the Shanghai meet, Chinese superstar Liu Xiang —still recovering from the Achilles-tendon injury that forced him to drop out of the Beijing Olympics —lost a photo finish for second place. Liu finished one hundredth of a second behind Shi Dongpeng and 0.41 seconds behind the winner, David Oliver of the United States.
