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60 free The 100 Metres trivia questions with answers — sports quiz, new questions added Aug 2026.
This 100 metres trivia quiz covers the ten seconds that decide who is the fastest human alive. The easy questions are the ones any Olympic viewer knows: the man who ran 9.58, the woman whose 10.49 has stood since 1988, the three commands at the start and what happens on a false start now. From there it moves through the first sub-10 clocking, the Night of Speed, the men who won Olympic gold before turning to the NFL, and the record that was rescinded three days after Seoul. The harder end is for athletics obsessives: the German who was accused of a false start for running too fast, the runway lane ruined by race walkers in Tokyo, the invention of the starting block, why 0.100 seconds matters, the tailwind limit, why 100 m times at altitude carry an A, the anemometer that read zero on a windy day in Indianapolis, and the five-thousandths of a second that separated gold and silver in Paris. Every answer was checked against encyclopaedia entries for the event, its record progressions, its champions and its Olympic finals before publishing, and the supporting sentence is stored with each question. If you enjoy this one, try our Usain Bolt, Olympic Games and athletics quizzes next.
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Q 01What is the men's 100 metres world record?
9.58
It was set in the 2009 World Championships final in Berlin, taking 0.11 off the previous mark.
Q 02Who holds the women's 100 metres world record of 10.49 seconds?
Florence Griffith Joyner
She ran it at the 1988 US Olympic Trials in Indianapolis, taking 0.27 off Ashford's record.
Q 03What are the three instructions given to sprinters at the start of a 100 m race?
On your marks, set, and the gun
The set position lets them preload their muscles isometrically for a faster start.
Q 04At roughly what point in a 100 m race do sprinters reach top speed?
50-60 m
They then decelerate towards the line, so holding top speed is the main training focus.
Q 05A reaction time faster than how many seconds is ruled a false start?
0.100
Tests suggest the human brain cannot respond to the gun any quicker than that.
Q 06Since 2010, what happens to a sprinter who false-starts?
Immediate disqualification
The rule caught the world record holder himself at the 2011 World Championships.
Q 07Which sprinter was famously disqualified for a false start in the 2011 World Championships 100 m final?
Usain Bolt
His training partner Yohan Blake won the title in his absence.
Q 08What is the maximum tailwind allowed for a 100 m time to count for records?
2.0 m/s
Times run above 1,000 m altitude are marked with an A but are still legal.
Q 09Which part of the body must cross the finish line first to win?
The torso
Limbs, head and neck do not count, and a photo finish settles close calls.
Q 10Who was the first man to break 10 seconds with automatic timing, at the 1968 Olympics?
Jim Hines
His 9.95 in Mexico City stood as the world record for almost 15 years.
Q 11What happened at the US championships in Sacramento on 20 June 1968, the so-called 'Night of Speed'?
Three men ran hand-timed 9.9 in one evening
Hines, Ronnie Ray Smith and Charles Greene all dipped under 10 that evening.
Q 12Which NFL team drafted the 1968 Olympic 100 m champion after his gold, giving him the nickname 'Oops'?
Miami Dolphins
He was picked 146th overall in 1968 and appeared in ten games for Miami.
Q 13Who was the first woman to run under 11 seconds?
Marlies Göhr
Eleven seconds is the women's equivalent of the men's ten-second barrier.
Q 21How many gold medals did Jesse Owens win at the 1936 Berlin Olympics, including the 100 m?
Four
He also won the 200 m, long jump and 4x100 m relay.
Q 22Which sprinter emulated Owens's Berlin haul at the 1984 Los Angeles Olympics?
Carl Lewis
He won nine Olympic golds in all and was named Sportsman of the Century by the IOC in 1999.
Q 23Which childhood illness did Wilma Rudolph overcome before her three golds in Rome in 1960?
Polio
She lost strength in her left leg and foot and wore a brace, making weekly bus trips to Nashville for treatment.
Q 14Since when has the IAAF required fully automatic timing to a hundredth of a second for 100 m records?
1977
The men's record has been improved twelve times since then.
Q 15Bob Hayes ran a wind-assisted sub-10 at the 1964 Olympics; what wind reading made it illegal?
5.3 m/s
His 9.91 came in the semi-finals; his 10.0 in the final tied the world record.
Q 16Why was Bob Hayes's lane 1 in the 1964 Olympic final in such poor condition?
The 20 km race walk had used it the day before
He still won gold and went on to a Hall of Fame career with the Dallas Cowboys.
Q 17Why did the judges initially rule Armin Hary's 10.0 in Zurich in 1960 a false start?
They thought the time was too fast to be real
He was allowed to run again and produced another 10.0, the first ratified at that time.
Q 18Armin Hary's 1960 Olympic gold made him the first non-American winner since which Canadian in 1928?
Percy Williams
The Americans' grip on the event was almost total in the interwar and postwar decades.
Q 19Which sprinter won the very first Olympic 100 m in 1896?
Thomas Burke
The women's event did not join the programme until 1928.
Q 20Who was the first women's Olympic 100 m champion, in 1928?
Betty Robinson
Fifteen men from eight nations had contested the first men's final 32 years earlier.
Q 24Who was the first person to retain the Olympic 100 m title, in 1964 and 1968?
Wyomia Tyus
Lewis, Devers, Fraser-Pryce and Bolt have since matched her.
Q 25What time did Ben Johnson run to win the 1988 Seoul Olympic final before being disqualified?
9.79
His sample tested positive for a steroid; Lewis's 9.92 became the world record.
Q 26Which banned substance was found in Ben Johnson's urine sample in Seoul?
Stanozolol
He was disqualified three days after the race and later admitted doping when he set his 1987 record too.
Q 27What is the name of Charlie Francis's book about coaching Ben Johnson, admitting his athletes used steroids?
Speed Trap
Francis claimed all top athletes were doing the same.
Q 28Where did Usain Bolt first break the 100 m world record, running 9.72 in May 2008?
New York City
It was only his fifth senior 100 m race; Tyson Gay finished second.
Q 29What time did Bolt run in the 2008 Beijing Olympic final despite slapping his chest before the line?
9.69
Kriss Akabusi called the celebration showboating; Bolt said the gold, not the record, was the goal.
Q 30The Berlin record run took how much off the previous record, the electronic era's biggest cut?
0.11 s
He also broke the 200 m record twice, ending at 19.19.