Robot run past bolt! 9.58 record beaten at Beijing robot games

Usain Bolt’s legendary 100-metre world record has been beaten, but not by another human being. This time, it was a humanoid robot that raced into the history books.

In a stunning moment at the World Humanoid Robot Games in Beijing, a Chinese-made humanoid robot reportedly clocked 9.39 seconds over 100 metres, eclipsing Bolt’s iconic 9.58-second world record set at the 2009 World Championships in Berlin.

The performance has sent shockwaves through the sporting and technology worlds, with the robot finishing 0.19 seconds faster than the Jamaican sprint king’s long-standing mark.

And if that was not enough, Chinese smartphone company Honor said one of its humanoid robots had gone even faster during a trial ahead of the Games, clocking an eye-popping 9.32 seconds.

That would put the machine 0.26 seconds ahead of Bolt’s official human world record.

More than 2,000 humanoid robots are taking part in the five-day Olympics-style competition, which features 51 events and over 1,000 competitions ranging from sprinting and football to table tennis, weightlifting and tug of war.

The robot that beat Bolt’s mark was developed by Beijing-based company X-Humanoid, which also produced a robot that reportedly cleared 2.88 metres in the standing high jump, surpassing the human world record of 2.45 metres.

While Bolt's 9.58 seconds remains the official world record for a human athlete, the jaw-dropping display has raised a fascinating question for sports fans:

How fast can the machines really go. And could the fastest man in history one day have to look over his shoulder at a robot?

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