Usain Bolt’s top recorded speed is about 44.7 km/h (27.8 mph) during his 100 m world-record run in Berlin 2009, and that is essentially how fast he could run at peak.

His peak sprint speed

  • In the 2009 World Championships 100 m final, Bolt set the current world record of 9.58 seconds.
  • Analysis of that race shows an average speed of about 37.6 km/h (23.4 mph) over the whole 100 m, with a peak speed around 44.72 km/h (27.78 mph) between 60–80 meters.

Could he have gone even faster?

  • Physicists have argued that in his 2008 Olympic 100 m (9.69 s, where he celebrated early), he might have run noticeably faster if he had sprinted hard through the line, implying his absolute limit could have been slightly beyond his official records.
  • Later analyses of his races with lasers and detailed split times suggest his biomechanics and acceleration pattern were already near human limits, so any extra improvement would likely be very small—hundredths of a second, not a huge jump in speed.

Compared with everyday speeds

  • His top speed is similar to a city car briefly accelerating to about 28 mph, but reached using only leg power over a few seconds.
  • That speed is well above most trained sprinters and far beyond recreational runners, which is why his 9.58 seconds from 2009 still stands as the men’s 100 m world record.

Information gathered from public forums or data available on the internet and portrayed here.