Usain Bolt won the 100m world title in Beijing on 23 August 2015, running 9.79 to hold off Justin Gatlin by a hundredth of a second. He arrived at the Bird's Nest after a season broken up by injury, no longer the favourite.
Behind at halfway, then the charge to the line
Gatlin led the world list and had won his semi-final with ease in 9.77. At the midpoint of the final he was ahead, but Bolt sat close enough to strike, then puffed out his chest and charged.
In an eerie repeat of the semi-final, Gatlin stumbled and lost his form as he tried to hold on. Bolt crossed first in 9.79, with Gatlin second in 9.80 and Trayvon Bromell and Andre De Grasse sharing bronze in 9.92.
His slowest title, on the track where it all began
The winning margin of 0.01 seconds was only the second time such a gap had decided a world 100m final, after 2003. There was no world record and no show-boating this time, and it was the slowest of all Bolt's championship victories.
It was his third World Championships 100m gold, a mark reached before him only by Carl Lewis. The venue carried its own weight: this was the same stadium where his rise began at the 2008 Olympic Games.
"Everyone wants to win," Gatlin told reporters afterwards. "I came out here and got nipped at the line by the great Usain."
Bolt left the Bird's Nest just as he had left it seven years earlier, as the world's fastest man.
