EUGENE, Oregon, (Reuters) – Having raced a zebra and  a giraffe, American Shawn Crawford is in a unique position to  gauge Jamaican sensation Usain Bolt’s explosive impact on  sprinting.

“He woke up all sprinters,” Crawford, a silver medallist  behind world record holder Bolt at last year’s Beijing  Olympics, told Reuters in a telephone interview.
“It is no longer good (enough) to run 9.9s or 9.8s (in the  100 metres) or 19.7s or 19.8s (in the 200). “When Usain dropped  both of those records (in Beijing), he raised the bar.”

Crawford, who beat a giraffe and accused a zebra of a false  start before losing a re-run on a 2003 television show, added:  “Sprinting is at a different level, a new level.”
Bolt blew away the old world records at last August’s  Olympics with new marks of 9.69 seconds in the 100 metres and  19.30 in the 200 in China.
Crawford, the 2004 Athens gold medallist over 200 metres,  only competed against Bolt over the longer distance in Beijing.

Finishing fourth, Crawford was elevated to second when two  runners — Churandy Martina of Netherland Antilles and American  Wallace Spearmon – were disqualified.
Crawford subsequently gave his silver medal to Martina,  saying it that was not the way he wanted to win a medal.
The impact of Bolt’s success has spread beyond the current  crop of sprinters, Crawford said.

“He woke up not only those of us running now, but the youth  too,” the 31-year-old American said. “They are saying ‘Usain  Bolt did it, I can do it.’
“That is the whole idea of lfe, to wake up the future so we  can be better in the future,” said Crawford, who faces Bolt  over 100 in Toronto on June 11.
“Tyson (Gay) has already displayed that we are going to see  times like Bolt’s this year.”

Gay, the 2007 world champion who was slowed during last  year’s Olympics by a hamstring injury, clocked a personal best  19.58 seconds — the third-fastest 200 metres ever — at last  weekend’s New York grand prix.

Only Bolt and former world record holder Michael Johnson  have ever run faster.