Jamaican Usain Bolt set the world championships alight on Sunday in the same Berlin Olympic stadium where, in 1936, American sprinter Jesse Owens also achieved immortality in front of a much more unsympathetic audience.

While Owens buried a dagger into the heart of the Nazis' theory on Aryan supremacy, 73 years later Bolt took the world 100m title, shattering his own world record with a time of 9.58sec to destroy the mark he set in the 2008 Olympic final of 9.69sec.