On 19 July 2002, in Kingston, Usain Bolt won the 200m at the World Junior Championships. At just 15, he became the youngest world junior champion in history.
Fifteen years old, and first in the world
The final was run on home soil, before a Jamaican crowd. Bolt, still a schoolboy, lined up against runners years older than him. The pressure of a home championship sat on a teenager barely known beyond the island.
He crossed the line first over 200m, the distance that would define his career. The result made a 15-year-old a world junior champion in front of his own people. It was his first title of standing on the global stage.
The starting line of a record-breaking career
That Kingston win was the first marker in a story that reshaped sprinting. It came seven years before Berlin, where Bolt ran 19.19 over 200m, a world record that still stands. The same distance carried him from junior champion to the fastest man over the bend.
From that home victory he grew into the most decorated sprinter of his era. He would take three consecutive Olympic 200m titles, closing at Rio 2016 in 19.78, and seal eight career Olympic golds.
The 200m stayed his signature. He won four straight world titles over the distance and, in Beijing in 2015, added a tenth world championships gold in 19.55. A year earlier he had anchored Jamaica to relay gold, building a record collection few will match.
The teenager who won at home in 2002 set the tone for everything that followed. In Kingston, the story began.
