Humanoid robots beat Bolt’s 100m record at Beijing games

Chinese humanoid robots shattered multiple human world records, including Usain Bolt's 100-meter sprint mark, on the opening day of the second World Humanoid Robot Games in Beijing on Saturday, in a dramatic showcase of the country's accelerating robotics ambitions.

Record-Breaking Sprints

A robot called Tiangong Ultra, developed by the Beijing Humanoid Robot Innovation Center, won the 100-meter sprint in 9.39 seconds, beating Bolt's human world record of 9.58 seconds set at the 2009 World Athletics Championships in Berlin. Honor's ↘ 2.51% Lightning robot finished second in 9.47 seconds, also faster than Bolt's mark. Earlier in the day, Lightning had reportedly clocked 9.32 seconds in a preparatory test at a peak speed of 14.5 meters per second.tv5.espn+1

The robots lacked Bolt's grace at the finish line, slamming into thick mats placed several meters past the end of the track. Tiangong stumbled into the sidelines, forcing onlookers to move, while Lightning collapsed and was carried away on a stretcher.flashscore

A humanoid robot also cleared 2.88 meters in the standing high jump, surpassing Cuba's Javier Sotomayor's human record of 2.45 meters set in 1993. Both record-breaking robots were from Beijing-based X-Humanoid.itv+1

A Rapidly Growing Competition

The five-day games, held at Beijing's National Speed Skating Oval built for the 2022 Winter Olympics, have expanded from 280 teams at the 2025 inaugural event to 666 teams fielding 2,056 robots from 16 countries across six continents. The 51 events span traditional sports like football and table tennis alongside industrial tasks such as EV charging, restaurant work, and cable assembly.sbs+2

The improvement from last year is stark. In 2025, Tiangong Ultra won the 100 meters in 21.50 seconds — more than double this year's time.flashscore

Geopolitical Backdrop

The games opened the same week Beijing hosted the 2026 World Robot Conference and amid rising U.S.-China tensions over robotics. Last month, the U.S. Federal Communications Commission announced a ban on imports of new foreign-made humanoid robots, citing national security, while the Pentagon added Unitree, one of China's leading robot makers, to its list of companies with alleged Chinese military ties. Unitree's shares jumped more than fivefold in its Shanghai trading debut earlier in the week.itv+2

Despite the spectacle, experts caution that humanoid robots remain largely confined to demonstrations and research. "Only when it can work in those end scenarios does it have real value. Simply running and jumping does not improve efficiency," said Lumos Robotics CEO Yu Chao.sbs