Usain Bolt voted ‘The Greatest’ male athlete of the last 75 years

According to Athletics Weekly (AW), readers consider the sprint star Jamaican’s eight-time Olympic gold medallist Usain Bolt as the greatest male athlete of the past 75 years. They placed Shelly-Ann Fraser-Pryce third among the women behind Tirunesh Dibaba of Ethiopia and Fanny Blankers-Koen of Netherlands.

Since 1945, there hasn’t been an athlete who has impacted track and field the way Bolt has.

The magazine is celebrating its Diamond anniversary and for its December issue, to mark the occasion it asked its more than 100,000 readers to vote for the top male and female track and field athletes between then and the present day.

A whopping 55.3 per cent of the votes went to Usain Bolt as the top male athlete. Bolt won eight Olympic gold medals between 2008 and 2012 and became the first athlete to win gold medals in the 100m and 200m for three consecutive Olympic Games.

Bolt also won 11 World Championship gold medals.

The Jamaican also holds the world records in the 100m and 200m that were set at the 2009 World Championships in Berlin, Germany.

Coming in second with 17.1 per cent of the votes was the outstanding Ethiopian Haile Gebrselassie while Czechoslovakia’s Emil Zatopek was third with 14.5 per cent of the votes.