2015 World Championships in Athletics – Men's 200 metres

The men's 200 metres at the 2015 World Championships in Athletics was held at the Beijing National Stadium on 25, 26 and 27 August.

Contents

• Records
• Schedule
• Heats
• Semifinals
• Final
• References

Coming in to these championships, defending champion, world record holder, Olympic champion Usain Bolt had given no indication of being prepared to match the heights of his previous championships. His season best was only 20.13, but he was Usain Bolt, the star of the sport since 2008. Meanwhile, Justin Gatlin came in as the world leader with a personal best 19.57 to win the American Championships, backing up the 19.68 he had run at the Prefontaine Classic a month earlier. Bolt indicated he thought the 200 would be the easier of his championships to defend.

In the heats, Bolt was back in the pack with a 20.28, jogging the last 50 metres while Ramil Guliyev was setting his Turkish national record at 20.01. Gatlin led the semis with 19.87, Bolt ran a season best 19.95. Behind them were top qualifiers Alonso Edward and Anaso Jobodwana barely over 20 seconds.

The final started with the 100 meter specialist Gatlin blasting out of the blocks, but Bolt to his far outside was not far behind him relative to the staggered start. It was clearly a two-man race. Coming off the turn, Bolt may have been slightly ahead but it was almost even, with Femi Ogunode next on the far inside. Behind them Jobodwana separated from the pack while Ogunode disappeared. Edward, the 2009 silver medalist and Jobodwana recorded the same finishing time (a national record for Jobodwana) but Jobodwana won the bronze medal by 2 thousandths of a second.

Bolt's 19.55 winning time was the next slowest championship winning time of his career. Still only three other men have ever run faster. This was Bolt's fourth straight World Championship at 200 metres.