Su Bingtian

  Su Bingtian is the first ever Asian sprinter to break the ten second barrier on the 100 metre dash. Despite being five inches shorter than an average sprinter, his record of 6.42 seconds in the 60 metre dash is the fastest time in Asia and places him in the top five world wide. He even broke the 10 second barrier on the 100 metre dash.

        Bingtian was born on the 29th of August, 1989 in the Guangdong province of China. His early career went mostly unnoticed until he obtained three straight wins in the Asian Grand Prix series in May of 2009. In 2011, he set a new Chinese record of 6.56 seconds in the 60 metre dash, and soon won the 2011 Asian Athletics Championship with a personal best of 10.21 seconds in the 100 metre dash, establishing himself as the top sprinter in China.

Bingtian leading the sprint at the 2020 Tokyo Olympics semi finals for the 100 meter dash. Source

For Su, 2013 started off strong with two national records in the 60 metre dash. But soon his rival, Zhang Peimeng, beat his 100 metre national record. Bingtian quickly responded with his new personal best of 10.06 seconds in Beijing. Later that year, for the first time, he qualified for the International Amateur Athletic Federation (IAAF) World Championships of 2013. He ran in the sixth heat with a time of 10.16 seconds, qualifying him for the semi finals. Unfortunately, Bingtian was disqualified in his semi final due to a false start, while his rival Zhang Peiming achieved the national record with a time of 10.00 seconds. 

Bingtian didn’t give up. On May 30th, 2015, he clocked an extremely memorable 9.99 seconds in the 100 metre dash, becoming the first Asian sprinter to receive a time less than 10 seconds, and once again updated the Chinese record. Later that year , during the semi final of the 2015 IAAF World Championships, Bingtian clocked a time of 9.986, tying Jimmy Vicaut’s time for the eighth fastest. They would both go to the final, creating the first nine man final in World Championship history.

    To many sports analysts and people in Asia, running a sub 10 second 100 metre dash time was not even a possibility for Asians. Bingtian is a legend, he proved them wrong with his 9.83 second 100 metre dash in the 2020 Summer Olympics in his heat. Su Bingtian’s story is so inspirational that today, some may even argue that an Asian could potentially beat Usain Bolt’s world record.