Usain Bolt believes one key advancement that has made athletes such as Shelly-Ann Fraser-Pryce get faster with age would have allowed him to extend his career for a little longer.

Usain Bolt has revealed that modern advances in sprinting spike technology could have drastically changed the course of his career and perhaps even delayed his retirement.

The eight-time Olympic champion, widely regarded as the greatest sprinter of all time, admitted in a recent interview that he often wonders what his times would have looked like had he competed in today’s era of highly advanced track spikes.

“I’ve been asked many times about these things,” Bolt said in an interview.

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 “One thing I fully agree with is what Shelly-Ann [Fraser-Pryce] has shown. The older she got, the faster she got with the spikes. When I sat down, I thought, you know what — I probably would have run way faster if I had continued. If I knew spikes would get to this level, maybe I wouldn’t have retired so early.”

Fraser-Pryce, a fellow Jamaican sprint icon and Bolt’s contemporary, has continued to dominate the track well into her 30s ever since she won her first major global individual gold medal at the 2008 Olympic games.

The sprint queen confirmed that her recent final 100 meter appearance at the Tokyo World Championships would be her last representing Jamaica, which is a whole eight years since Bolt himself last raced.

 Many attribute her ability to stay at the top to her relentless work ethic, but Bolt believes modern spike technology has also played a major role.

The latest sprint spikes feature carbon plates and lightweight foams designed to maximize energy return and reduce fatigue, innovations that were not available during Bolt’s peak years between 2008 and 2016. 

Fraser-Pryce’s resurgence — clocking some of the fastest times of her career -including the 2022 100m final at the World Athletics Championships in Oregon when she finished first in 10.61 seconds at the age of 35 — has highlighted how equipment advancements are helping sprinters push their limits longer than ever before.

Despite acknowledging the progress, Bolt confessed he has never tested the new spikes himself. “No, I don’t want to pull my hamstrings,” he joked. The Jamaican retired in 2017 after a series of injuries and has since maintained that his decision was final.

Still, his reflections add an intriguing “what if” to athletics history. With a world record of 9.58 seconds in the 100m and 19.19 in the 200m — both still untouched — Bolt remains the benchmark. But with today’s technology, he believes he might have gone even faster.