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Nine years ago today Usain Bolt wandered out on to a busy shopping street in Manchester and shocked the world.
It had been raining hard. Not a day for hanging around. Few expected the Jamaican to take that so literally.
“The final of the men’s 150 metres,” Stuart Storey told television viewers as the gun fired and passers-by looked up to see the big man stumble out of his blocks.
Nine months earlier, Bolt had announced himself by running the 100m and 200m in world-record times at the Beijing Olympics. Ninety-one days on, he would improve both of those at the World Championships in Berlin, clocking times of 9.58 and 19.19 seconds, which still stand to this day.