The Michael Phelps story was impressive, of course — his body of work in this Olympics is mind-boggling — but for my money the most extraordinary individual achievement of these Games thus far has been Usain Bolt’s win in the 100 meters. He blew away the field, celebrated the last 10 or 15 meters and still broke the world record with a 9.69.

At 6-feet-4, 198 pounds — gargantuan for a sprinter — Bolt runs with a kind of joyful lope. In the 100-meter final, he came out of he blocks a bit behind, and at the halfway point started to put everyone in his dust. The last part of his run was pure euphoria.

If you haven’t seen the highlight, you should. I couldn’t get it on YouTube — just still shots set to music, mostly — but it is available through NBC (although you must have the right browser). I got blocked from posting it here, but this is the link.

This article appears in Aug 13-19, 2008.

Eric Snider is the dean of Bay area music critics. He started in the early 1980s as one of the founding members of Music magazine, a free bi-monthly. He was the pop music critic for the then-St. Petersburg...