The performance achieved by Jamaican Usain Bolt in 2009, the world record in the 100-meter sprint, at 9 seconds and 58 hundredths, has been surpassed.
However, not in a normal and officially recognized sports manner, but Bolt was defeated by a robot. The humanoid robot Lightning, created by the company Honor, covered the flat 100m distance in 9.32 seconds. It happened in Beijing, before the inauguration of the World Humanoid Robot Games.
Honor is a company specialized in producing smartphones, and the time is fabulous, far superior to the one achieved by Bolt in 2009 at the World Championships in Berlin.
The performance is even more remarkable considering that Lightning (Fulger) reached a top speed of 14.5 meters per second at this preparatory event for the World Humanoid Robot Games.
It should also be noted that the same robot won the half marathon in Beijing this year in April, covering the 21 kilometers in 50 minutes and 26 seconds - faster than the world record time in athletics. Here, the world record time was held by Ugandan athlete Jacob Kiplimo in March 2026. The robots in second and third places also went below the world record mark.
Another interesting fact to mention is that the first race with humanoid robots took place in April 2025, at the Yizhuang half marathon in Beijing, which had 21 humanoid robots at the start alongside the thousands of people participating in the regular race. The winning robot was Tiangong Ultra, in two hours and 40 minutes.