page_title: Walter Dix
section_title: 2008 Olympic Games
hierarchical_section_title: Walter Dix / Professional career / 2008 Olympic Games
caption_attribution_description: Usain Bolt winning the 100 m final 2008 Olympics
context_page_description: Walter Dix is a retired American sprinter who specialized in the 100 meters and 200 meters. He is the fifth-fastest 200-meter runner ever with a best of 19.53 seconds, and has broken the 10-second barrier in the 100 meters, with a best of 9.88 seconds.
  Dix was a highly successful amateur athlete, setting a state record in the 100 m and trying out for the US Olympic Team at the age of eighteen. He joined Florida State University and in his first year he broke the 100 m American junior record and won at the NCAA Outdoor Championships. After a fourth-place finish at the 2005 US Championships, Dix continued with his collegiate success, setting an NCAA record of 19.69 seconds in the 200 m and coming within one hundredth of the 100 m record. He completed a 100 m, 200 m, and 4×100 meter relay sweep at the 2007 NCAA Outdoor Championships, the first to do so since John Carlos in 1969. He closed his amateur career in 2008: another NCAA 200 m title made him the third most decorated track athlete in NCAA history, and he won gold and silver at the 2008 US Olympic Trials.
  Dix turned professional in mid-2008, signing a multimillion-dollar contract with Nike.
context_section_description: Competing at the 2008 US Olympic Trials in Eugene, Oregon, Dix qualified for the 2008 Summer Olympics in both the 100 and 200 m events. After recording a personal-best-equaling 9.93 seconds in the 100 m semifinals, he took second place behind Tyson Gay with a wind-assisted 9.80 seconds. He stated that his NCAA experience had helped raise his confidence and that he was less nervous than he was at the 2005 US Championships. The 200 m favorite Gay suffered an injury in the qualifying rounds, and Dix and Crawford both finished the 200 m final with 19.86 seconds, with Dix elected the winner by a photo finish. After signing a sponsorship deal with Nike worth around $1,000,000 a year, described by his agent as "the largest deal ever for a track athlete just coming out of college", Dix stated that his aims for the Olympics were personal bests in the individual sprints and a gold in the relay race.
  Competing in his first Olympics, Dix qualified for the 100 m final with a season's best of 9.95 seconds. In the final he registered a personal best of 9.91 seconds, finishing behind new world record holder Usain Bolt of Jamaica and Richard Thompson of Trinidad and Tobago. The Olympic bronze medal was Dix's first medal at a major international competition.
  A few days later, he finished fifth in the 200 m final with a time of 19.98 seconds, some distance off the winner Usain Bolt who had broken the world record. However, it transpired that both the silver and bronze medalists (Churandy Martina of the Netherlands Antilles and American Wallace Spearmon) had stepped out of their lanes thus they were disqualified. As a result, Dix received his second Olympic bronze medal. Further disqualifications occurred in the heats of the Olympic 4×100 meter relay race: Darvis Patton and Tyson Gay misjudged a baton pass, causing the American team to be eliminated and spoiling any chance of Dix receiving a relay medal. He finished the Olympics as the only American sprinter to medal in two individual events. Dix closed the season with two sub-10 second runs at the Weltklasse and Athletissima meetings, finishing second to a Jamaican on both occasions (Bolt and Asafa Powell).
caption: The 2008 Olympic 100 m final, with Usain Bolt leading and Dix in blue (center).
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