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Usain Bolt’s historic third consecutive gold medal in the men’s 100-meter dash cemented his status as history’s greatest sprinter and the world’s fastest man. He edged out Justin Gatlin, an American, and Andre De Grasse, a Canadian, on his way to the gold.

But how does Bolt compare to the full Olympic field in the 100-meter dash – not just this year, but against every Olympic medalist since 1896? To answer that question, we created a massive (and imaginary) track with 88 lanes – one for every medal awarded in the 100-meter dash in the modern Olympics.

We then pitted these runners against each other in an imaginary race, using their average speeds. We froze all the runners at the moment the winner crossed the finish line.

None of the medalists from Sunday’s race would reach the finish line in this one.

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There are three Usain Bolts on this track: one from Beijing in 2008, one from London in 2012 and one from Rio de Janeiro in 2016. The London version of Usain Bolt is our race’s winner. His time of 9.63 seconds remains an Olympic record.

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Along our track we see the fastest runners in history: Carl Lewis, gold medalist in 1984 and 1988; Jim Hines, the first man to break 10 seconds in the Olympics; Jesse Owens, who won four golds in Berlin in 1936; Archie Hahn, the “Milwaukee Meteor”, who won 3 events in 1904.

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And finally, near the end of this track, we have Tom Burke, who won in Athens in 1896. His time, 12 seconds, puts him more than 60 feet behind the Bolts.

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So what can we take away from this picture? For one, a lot of these sprinters are from the United States. Although Americans have had a rivalry with British sprinters, and, more recently, Caribbean athletes, nearly half of these runners are American.

41 American medals

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But we can also see that glory is fleeting. Repeat performances rarely happen in the Olympics: There’s been a new winner on the podium in all but four Olympics. Archie Hahn won in 1904 and 1906 and Carl Lewis won in 1984 and 1988. Bolt is the first to win this event in three consecutive Olympics.

Repeat winners

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To get a little more perspective, let’s see how America’s best young sprinters compare. Here are the records for American sprinters at different ages, as recorded by the Amateur Athletic Union. Obviously, they are well behind today’s athletes. But they’re not as far behind as you might expect.

America’s fastest 8-year-old ran the 100-meter dash in 13.46 seconds – less than a second off third place in 1896. And the record for 15- to 16-year-olds is 10.27 – good enough for a bronze as recently as 1980.

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Still, it's not like those Olympians were slow. Despite more than a century’s improvement in nutrition, fitness, footwear and track surfaces, just three seconds – yes, an eternity in sprinting, but three seconds nonetheless – separate 120 years of Olympic gold medalists.

Explore them all in the chart below, or visit the video version of this track from 2012.

Usain Bolt vs. 120 years of Olympic sprinters