10-second barrier

The 10-second barrier is the physical and psychological barrier of completing the 100 metres sprint in under ten seconds. The achievement is traditionally regarded as the hallmark of a world-class male sprinter. Its significance has become less important since the late 1990s, as an increasing number of runners have surpassed the ten seconds mark. The current men's world record holder is Usain Bolt, who ran a 9.58 seconds at the 2009 IAAF World Championship final.

Jim Hines was the first person to ever officially run the 100 metres under 10 seconds at the 1968 Mexico City Olympics. The fastest non-winning sub-10 performance was by Tyson Gay who clocked 9.71 in 2009 as a runner-up. The only quadragenarian to have run a sub-10 is Kim Collins who ran his personal best time of 9.93 in 2016 at 40 years old, earning him the nickname Ageless Wonder. Justin Gatlin chronologically held the longest streak of sub-10 performances in history, having a sub-10 career in a time-span of 18 years, from his first sub-10 clocking in 2003, to the final one in 2021. In 2025, Akani Simbine became the first athlete in history to run under 10 seconds in the 100 m for 11 seasons in a row. That surpassed the previous record of 10, held by Bolt. The most competitive 100 m sprint races completed in sub 10 seconds is 97 races and was achieved by Asafa Powell between 12 June 2004 and 1 September 2016.