Justin Gatlin won on speed maintenance, not peak speed. From 50m through the finish, every 10m split stayed within a 0.01s range — 0.86 to 0.87 seconds. No other finalist matched that. The ability to hold velocity through the line has a long coaching mythology around it, but the report data cuts it back: maintaining top speed is not exclusive to the fastest athletes in any given race.
Christian Coleman passed 30m in 3.77 seconds — equal fastest ever recorded at that split, matching Michael Green at the 1996 Olympics and Jon Drummond in Berlin 2000. He led the race through 90 metres. His flight time on the final completed step increased 28.1% compared to the penultimate step — the largest change among the three medallists — suggesting his mechanics broke down under late-race fatigue more than Gatlin's did.
Akani Simbine posted the fastest single split across all finalists: 0.84 seconds for the 50-60m section, equivalent to 11.9 m/s. He was also the slowest finalist between 20m and 40m. This was the first men's 100m world or Olympic final since 1972 where the winner did not record the highest peak velocity. The speed was there. The race distribution was not.
Usain Bolt's left-foot contact time of 0.104s versus 0.092s on his right represented a larger asymmetry than any prior published analysis of his sprinting. The same pattern appeared in data from the 9.58 world record and in studies from 2009 to 2012 — but the magnitude in London was greater. His reaction time of 0.183s was the slowest he had ever recorded in a championship final. He was 0.03 seconds behind Gatlin. That gap existed before the gun fired.
Across all eight finalists, 7 of 8 underperformed their personal bests through step frequency decline, not step length. Vicaut was the exception — recovering from a leg injury, his length dropped while frequency held. The implication is direct: the variable that drops under fatigue, championship pressure, or imperfect taper is the one coaches should track.