BEIJING -- Imagine if he had really tried.

Usain Bolt of Jamaica smashed his own record in the 100 meters despite slowing up to celebrate the gold medal he won in the process on Saturday. AP Photo/Mark Baker

Pounding his chest, turning up the palms of his outstretched arms, mugging for the cameras before he even crossed the finish line, Usain Bolt rewrote the record books again and captured his first Olympic medal Saturday, running the 100-meter dash in a stunning 9.69 seconds.

His left shoe was untied when he crossed the finish line. Not that it mattered much. He could've walked across.

It was a blowout, a rout, no contest, as the 21-year-old Jamaican took a huge lead halfway through the race and finished upright, looking to his right to find not a challenger but instead of bunch of photographers recording history.

"It wasn't planned," the newly crowned "World's Fastest Man" said of his running celebration. "My aim was to come out and win. When I saw the time, I'm celebrating. I'm happy."

He broke his own record, set in May in New York, by .03 second and became the first sprinter to set the world record in the Olympics since Donovan Bailey ran 9.84 at the 1996 Atlanta Games.

"No one will get near it," fellow Jamaican Michael Frater, the sixth-place finisher, said of Bolt's record.