Jim Hines, the first athlete to officially run the 100 meters under ten seconds, has died

American Jim Hines, the first athlete to officially run the 100 meters under ten seconds (9.95), died on Saturday at the age of 76, the International Association of Athletics Federations (World Athletics) said. “deep sorrow”.

In addition to being the 1968 Olympic champion in the 100 meters, Hines is famous for being the first person to officially break the 10-second mark.recalls the institution in a press release published on its website overnight from Sunday to Monday.

It was on October 14, 1968, in the 100-meter final of the Olympic Games in Mexico that the American achieved this unprecedented feat, defeating Jamaican Lennox Miller and his compatriot Charles Green. The scoreboard at the Olympic Stadium first read 9.95, then his time was announced as 9.89 by the electric stopwatch, before finally settling at 9.95.

“No one could believe that a man runs so fast”

“If they corrected my time, it was because no one could believe that a man could run so fast.”Jim Hines said in an interview with a French newspaper team in 2016.

This record stood for fifteen years until his compatriot Calvin Smith’s 9-93 in Colorado Springs (USA) in 1983. The current holder is Usain Bolt of Jamaica, with a time of 9.58 in 2009. World Championship in Berlin.

In Mexico, Jim Hines also won gold in the American 4 × 100 m relay, but his two Olympic titles will remain without a future, as he quickly ended his career as an athlete, at the age of 22, and began without it. Great success in American football. The youngest, Hines, born in Arkansas, also almost became a baseball player before a coach, impressed by his speed, convinced him to throw the bat on the track.