Peter Kafka

Recent Posts by Peter Kafka

Now Showing on YouTube: Usain Bolt’s Amazing 200 Meter Run

Really doesn’t matter if you have the slightest interest in track and field. If you have a pulse, you will be amazed when you see Jamaican marvel Usain Bolt smashing yet another sprinting record, which he did just minutes ago at a German track meet.

Check it out:

Note that this clip is likely an unofficial one, at least for U.S.-based Web users, which means that YouTube may take it down in the near future. But no matter: Just type “Usain Bolt” in YouTube’s search box, adjust the “sort by” slider to “newest” and you’ll see clips come flooding in.

Presumably, at some point, Universal Sports, a unit of GE’s (GE) NBC Universal, will get around to posting a sanctioned version of the clip on Google’s (GOOG) video site, but by that point anyone who wants to see the run will have done so. Still, I wouldn’t expect it soon: NBC, recall, is the same outfit that made tennis fans watch one of Wimbledon’s most exciting matches in recent history on tape delay, for no good reason at all.

UPDATE: I spoke too soon. You can indeed watch a sanctioned version of the clip on Universal’s site, though it took some refreshing to get it running. Nice quality once you get there. Still nothing on YouTube, though.

In any event, Universal won’t allow sites like mine to embed the clip when it does appear. Their policy is not to do so because of “geo blocking” issues–a rep told me earlier this week when I was inquiring about the status of yet another amazing clip of Bolt smashing yet another record. If you want to see the official version of that one, you’ll have to go to Universal’s site or this YouTube page.

But if you don’t want to wait, you have plenty of options, like this:

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