Faster than Usain Bolt: The five-day robot Olympics putting humanoid autonomy to the test

Humanoid robots are racing, lifting, throwing and even playing tennis in Beijing this week, as China puts its rapidly advancing robotics industry through its paces.

The five-day World Humanoid Robot Games bring together more than 50 events, from traditional sports such as the 100-metre sprint and tug-of-war to challenges modelled on factory floors, restaurants, offices and emergency scenes.

But behind the spectacle and record-breaking times, the real competition is less about how fast a robot can run than how well it can cope when things go wrong.

Organisers are testing whether machines can see, think and respond to the messy unpredictability of the real world, and whether they can eventually perform useful work without a human stepping in.

The games, heavily promoted in Chinese state media, feature 51 events, including 30 sports competitions and 21 scenario-based contests.

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More than 40 per cent of the events require robots to operate fully autonomously, according to Huawei, a tech partner of the games.

The event is in its second year, and some robots are already outperforming the 2025 results.

On Saturday, two robots ran faster than Usain Bolt's 9.58-second world record in the 100-meter sprint. That was a sharp improvement from 2025, when the winning robot's time was more than 20 seconds.

Braking was an issue, as the machines slammed into a thick mat that organisers placed several metres after the finish line.

Another humanoid, the same model as the 100-meter champion, ran 400 metres in 39.7 seconds, faster than South African Wayde van Niekerk's world record of 43.03 seconds.

"The intensity is higher than last year, which places significant demands on the robot's battery management and thermal dissipation capabilities," said spectator and robotics investor Xu Qiaosheng.

"It holds huge significance for the development of China's industrial sector."

Robots will compete in tug-of-war and weightlifting, while Tai Chi and pitch-pot — in which contestants throw arrow-like sticks into a narrow-necked vase — will give traditional Chinese sports a futuristic twist.