Usain Bolt’s unparalleled career ended in extraordinary drama on Saturday as he pulled up with injury on the anchor leg of his very last race, the 4×100 metres relay final at the World Championships.
The 30-year-old had taken the baton for Jamaica a few metres adrift of the two leaders when, straining hard to catch them, he stopped abruptly with cramp in his left hamstring, began hobbling and tumbled to a halt after a forward roll.
As Britain went on to win gold, Bolt lay on his back in his lane, his head in hands, being tended to by medics as one waited with a wheelchair to help push him off the track.
The fastest man of all-time, surrounded by his three worried team mates, Omar McLeod, Julian Forte and Yohan Blake, rose gingerly to his feet and limped the last 30 metres to the line.
