In fact not just one image of the Jamaican sprinter in the sunshine-yellow running vest illuminated these Games but several, from the quizzical look that accompanied his arrow-in-the-air mime to the mesmerising combination of high-prancing stride and serene upper-body poise to the exuberance of the victory celebrations after each of his three gold medals.  His height was something else that added to the spectacle. He was a novelty. There had never been anyone of six feet five inches who travelled nearly so fast over short distances. Six feet three was reckoned to be the absolute tops before drag had a diminishing effect on a sprinter’s speed.  And yet it was precisely because he was so tall, and still stay perfectly balanced, that Bolt gained an advantage. His great strides devoured up to three metres of the track at a time as he removed the competitive element from Olympic sprinting and turned his races into masterclasses.  Bolt, who earlier in the year had set a world record of 9.72sec, reached the 100 metres final in Beijing with times of 9.92 in the quarter-finals and 9.85 in the semis. In the final he pounded down the track in just 41 strides to lower his world mark to 9.69, finishing comfortably in front of Trinidad’s Richard Thompson and the American Walter Dix.  His time would have been faster still had he taken care to fix his shoelaces before the start – the left one came undone and flapped dangerously – and not slowed down to celebrate with a bit of chest thumping before the finish. Based on his time at 60 metres it was estimated he might have been capable of 9.52.  The Jamaican was unconcerned by the what-might-have-been. "I was having fun," he said. "That’s just me – I like to have fun."  Bolt again amazed in the 200 metres final in which he set a world record of 19.30sec into a headwind to become the first man since another Jamaican, Don Quarrie, in 1976 to hold world records for the 100 and 200 metres at the same time. No one, though, had previously broken both these records within a matter of days at the same Olympics.  He rounded off his Games by running a superb bend on the third leg of the sprint relay. He then pointed the way to the finish line moments after releasing Asafa Powell on a swashbuckling run that delivered Jamaica a world mark of 37.10sec.  Watch all of the Telegraph's Great Olympic Moments videos.
Of the many colourful images that radiated from the 2008 Olympics in Beijing   none did so more memorably than that of Usain Bolt.