Unstoppable: Usain Bolt claimed his third gold in the 100m.
Usain Bolt blasted to his third straight Olympic 100 metres title as he took gold in 9.81 seconds in Rio.
The Jamaican had to work harder than expected to see off the challenge of American Justin Gatlin, though, after a sluggish start left him trailing at halfway.
But he powered through to land his seventh Olympic gold medal, with Gatlin taking silver in 9.89secs and Canada’s Andre de Grasse bronze in 9.91s.
Afterwards Bolt said: “I expected to go faster but I’m happy I won. I did what I had to do.”
Bolt declared himself on course for sporting immortality after completing the first part of his Olympic ’triple triple’ bid.
He said: “Somebody said if I win these three gold medals I would be immortal and I kind of liked it. So I’m going to run with that one.
“It wasn’t perfect execution, but I’m proud of myself.
“I wanted to set myself apart from everybody else and this is the Olympics, I have to do it.
“I came to this Olympics to win three gold medals, to prove myself again as one of the greats.”
