Kishane Thompson — 9.784 seconds

Jamaican Kishane Thompson ran 9.77 seconds in June 2024 — the fastest time of the year before the Paris Olympics — and narrowly lost the Olympic gold by the thickness of a fingernail to Noah Lyles. His 9.784 official Olympic time ranks joint-sixth all time, and Thompson, at 23, looks set to be the dominant force in sprinting through the late 2020s.