Fastest man on earth no longer in doubt: Is this Usain or what?

Bolt could save track _ and that’s not Usain

Seeing isn’t always believing when it comes to great feats in track and field, so there was cause for celebration at the news that Usain Bolt and everyone chasing him in the men’s 100 tested clean. The sport not only has a legitimate star in the fastest man ever but, as far as we know, his stunning numbers are legitimate, too.

Further evidence that athletics might finally be getting its act together is that after more than 600 tests at the world championships in Berlin, the only person caught cheating was a steeplechaser from Morocco. It could be that juicers — usually one step ahead of the drug police — are getting even better at hiding what they do, but it also might mean testing is finally beginning to prevail.

Indeed, the most interesting tests have nothing at all to do with steroids. International track officials are engaged in the delicate task of finding out whether 800-meter runner Caster Semenya of South Africa is really what she says she is — a woman, a task that took on more urgency after she won her event going away Wednesday.

We already know what Bolt is — a superstar of such rare talent that he astonishes every time he gets in the starting blocks. The Jamaican who few outside the sport had heard of before Beijing blew away Tyson Gay and everyone else in obliterating the world record in the 100 meters Sunday. He returns Thursday primed to do the same in the 200, which has always been his best event.

Because of Bolt’s stunning times, researchers have been trying to estimate just how fast a human can run. And the ease with which he lowered the 100 world record by .11 seconds indicates it may be a lot faster than we thought.

Anything under 10 seconds used to be considered world class. Now Bolt is at 9.58 — and he’s still trying to figure out how to get his long legs out of the blocks at the same time his fellow runners do.

“Personally, I think I have more work to do,” Bolt said after the 100.

British bookmakers are offering 3-1 odds that Bolt will go under 9.5 seconds by the end of September. Even Bolt thinks he could go as low as 9.4 seconds with the proper start.

The best thing about Bolt, though, may be the show that goes along with it.

He’s not afraid to preen and pose and have some fun as he rewrites the record books, doesn’t care about offending anyone when he lets up before the finish line to play to the crowd. He makes fans want to root for him, then gives them even more to cheer about when it comes time to actually perform.

In Beijing, IOC president Jacques Rogge may not have liked Bolt’s style, criticizing him for failing to show respect to his fellow competitors, but the fans loved him both when he ran and when he ran around celebrating afterward.

I was in the Bird’s Nest when Bolt clowned his way to a record in the 100 while running with his shoelace untied. I was also there a few nights later when he added the 200 gold medal in a race he seemed to run by himself. Michael Phelps may have won eight gold medals, but the Olympics belonged as much to the speedster in the gold running shoes as the swimmer in the Speedo.

It’s hard to imagine now, but there was once a time when being the world’s fastest man meant something. Runners from Jesse Owens to “Bullet Bob” Hayes were celebrated as great athletes, and track meets drew huge crowds.

Then some runners began juicing, and people stopped caring. Ben Johnson was busted after winning the 100 in Seoul, and everyone just assumed that speed now came from a vial.

Bolt is making it fun again, so much so that on Sunday his world record win competed for attention with Y.E. Yang and his shocking takedown of Tiger Woods. People will be watching again when he runs in the 200 just to see what he clocks.

That can only be good for track, which has become mostly a niche sport that struggles to get noticed between Olympics. Bolt is well on his way to becoming the kind of dominating superstar that Woods is now, and we’ve seen how that has worked out for golf.

We’ll probably always be a bit suspicious, if only because we’ve been burned so many times before. We see athletes doing things once thought impossible, and wonder how it became possible.

This time it may be different. This time we may have someone we can simply sit back and enjoy.

There’s nothing Usain about that.

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Tim Dahlberg is a national sports columnist for The Associated Press. Write to him at tdahlberg(at)ap.org