Jim Hines ran the first officially recognized electronically timed 100-metre race under 10 seconds.
Hines recorded 9.95 seconds in the Olympic final at Mexico City on 14 October 1968. The performance made him the first athlete whose sub-10-second 100 metres was officially recognized using fully automatic timing.
Electronic timing was important because hand times could be affected by reaction differences and stopwatch accuracy. Hines’s mark was also the first world record measured with fully automatic timing and stood as the world record until 1983.
Hines won the Olympic final ahead of Jamaica’s Lennox Miller and Charles Greene of the United States. Mexico City’s high altitude helped sprint performances by reducing air resistance, although it also made endurance events more difficult.