Two Chinese humanoid robots shattered Usain Bolt’s legendary 100m world record of 9.58 seconds at the 2026 World Humanoid Robot Games in Beijing. Leading the official race, Tiangong Ultra (developed by the Beijing Humanoid Robot Innovation Center) clocked an astonishing 9.39 seconds. It narrowly overtook Lightning, a robot built by smartphone manufacturer Honor, which finished right behind at 9.47 seconds. [1, 2]

While the speed was unmatched, these robots lacked the grace and celebratory flair of Usain Bolt:

• Crash Landings: Both machines were unable to decelerate on their own and slammed straight into thick padded mats at full speed to halt their momentum. [2, 3]
• Tiangong Ultra stumbled wildly across the track after crossing the line, veering dangerously toward the sidelines and scattering onlookers. [1, 2]
• Lightning suffered a catastrophic structural collapse upon impact and had to be carried away by human assistants on a stretcher. [1, 2]

The event showcases an aggressive acceleration in China’s state-backed robotics industry. At the inaugural games just one year prior, Tiangong Ultra won the exact same event in a sluggish 21.50 seconds. To achieve this year’s superhuman velocity, Honor engineers extended Lightning’s legs by 10 centimetres (up to 1.05 metres) specifically to optimize its stride length for sprinting. [1, 2, 3, 4, 5]

Would you like to know more about the other events at the World Humanoid Robot Games, or explore the hardware modifications engineers used to achieve these speeds?