Appears in Newsflare picks
01:23

Usain Bot: World's first humanoid 100m sprint champion crowned at Beijing robot games

Content Partner Cover Image
Content Partner Profile Image
Uploaded by a Newsflare content partner

Buy video

On 17 August at the National Speed Skating Oval in Beijing, the 2025 World Humanoid Robot Games crowned its first-ever 100-metre sprint champion: the “Embodied Tiangong Ultra” robot from Beijing’s Tiangong Team, which claimed victory with a time of 21.50 seconds — making it the world’s first humanoid “robot sprint king.”

It was the only robot in the competition to rely entirely on a fully autonomous navigation system, running the whole race without any manual remote control. Thanks to this autonomous operation, its final result was multiplied by a 0.8 coefficient, giving it an edge in the rankings.

Dubbed a “battle of sprinters,” the 100-metre final was fiercely contested. Out of 90 robots that entered the heats, only four made it to the final. Unitree Robotics’ H1 had set a remarkable 20.94-second performance in the semi-finals, the only run under 21 seconds, but since it was remotely operated, it did not qualify for the time coefficient bonus in the final.

Unitree Robotics nevertheless dominated the athletics programme at the Games, sweeping gold medals in the 1500m, 400m, 100m hurdles and the 4×100m relay, emerging as the overall track champion. After the sprint, Tiangong’s team leader publicly paid tribute to Unitree, praising its hardware and speed as formidable and crediting it as a vital force driving technological progress.

The 2025 World Humanoid Robot Games is the world’s first comprehensive sporting event exclusively for humanoid robots, bringing together 280 teams from 16 countries and regions in Beijing.

Categories

Tags

From the blog

Stories not Stock: 3 Reasons Why You Should Use UGC Instead of Stock Video

Video content is an essential part of a brand’s marketing strategy, and while stock footage has been a reliable go-to in the past, forward-thinking companies are looking to user-generated content for their video needs.

View post
Content Partner Cover Image
Content Partner Profile Image
Uploaded by a Newsflare content partner

Buy video