The world record in the men's 100 meters stands at 9.69 seconds.
A BMW M3 Coupe is capable of reaching 100 km/h (62 mph) in 4.6 seconds.
Today, three-time Olympic champion Usain Bolt knows what it feels like to travel at both speeds, as the 22-year old Jamaican has experienced his future sports car at its limits at the BMW Vehicle Test Facility in Aschheim near Munich.
"It was a fascinating experience", comments the athlete par excellence, following almost three hours of BMW Driver Training.
Greatly impressed by the tremendous power and the full sound of the engine, Bolt thoroughly enjoyed driving the 414-horsepower sports car across the handling course in wintry road conditions - fully aware that he was taking the vehicle to its physical limits - under the professional guidance of a BMW driving instructor.
"I was looking forward to it for a while now and actually it was wonderful," says Bolt. "It was raining but I still had fun and I'm hoping that I can go back some other time to get even better at the driving. I was trying to learn how to drift, but I didn't quite get the hang of it (no pun intended), but I did learn a lot of other new stuff. Traction control for example, was new to me. It should work out fine on the Jamaican roads because we actually practiced driving it in the rain and I learned a lot of about controlling the car with and without the traction control."
BMW also offers driver training at its Performance Driving School in Spartanburg, South Carolina.
The world record holder describes his first encounter with a BMW M3 Coupe in Jamaica as “love at first sight”. Even as a young boy he never missed a single opportunity to join his uncle for a ride in his BMW. The passion remained – and so did the dream of owning his own BMW M3, a dream his chief sponsor PUMA finally fulfilled in special recognition of Bolt's three gold medals.
Usain Bolt, who stands 6 feet 5 inches tall, won the sprint over 100 meters at the Olympic Games in Beijing in the record-breaking time of 9.69 seconds, beating his own previous world record from May 2008.
The giant athlete was also unsurpassed in the 200 meters, in which he set a new world record of 19.30 seconds. He seized his third gold medal by winning the 4x100-meter relay race together with the Jamaican team, likewise in a new world record time of 37.10 seconds. The Jamaican quartet improved on the previous world record set by the USA in 1993 by three tenths of a second.
