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It’s about 9.30 in the morning at Sherwood Content in the parish town of Trelawney. The chastening sunlight flaunted by the woody interiors of the household makes him grimace playfully. He sits on the bed, legs bobbing about on the floor and arms cupping the bend of his bed on either side, in contemplation.
Fleeting memories of the past allow him a smile. Time and again he has kept his word and time, itself! The title of the “fastest man alive” is an elixir he dabs into each morning. And for someone who has practically lived by the clock all his life, it is fitting that this article begins with time, talks about time and yes, honours this incredible “timekeeper”!
And it’s now time for Usain Bolt to hit the gym. He sweeps aside his reveries and a brilliantly variegated blanket, strictly in that order, and sets off for his morning ablutions. While he is at it, we embark upon on a journey about the man, his unabated gold rush and why, even on his 27th birthday, Bolt could well be hungrier than ever before.
Watching him before a race reminds one of the court jesters employed by erstwhile kings and emperors – gallivanting about, dishing out his famed caricatures, breaking into impromptu jigs, et al. The flushed faces flanking him at the start make for intriguing view. He stands tall in the middle: 6-foot-five and confident, in a sea of yellow and green representing Jamaican colours.
Bolt is in the air, his competitors sense, while all Bolt can sense is he, himself. You could go green with envy at the citadels of success he has erected or you may choose to uncork the grit behind the unplugged golden run he has had; nevertheless, you concede to Bolt being in the air!
For someone who had a bit of every sport in him, running was an adventure he chanced upon. Football and cricket were dear to him in high school and so the switch to track and field events didn’t happen until an astonished cricket coach urged him to do so.
Even though he was the fastest 100m sprinter of his school as early as 12, the first time Bolt himself felt a passion for track and field was after his silver medal in a 200m event of the High School Championships. Though he “felt a passion”, it never really showed in his training or the lack of it, as he took his feelings for practical jokes to elite levels.
His performances on the field screamed for attention while his off-field theatrics once landed him a police detention. He hid in the back of a van when he should have actually been limbering up for his 200m CARIFTA trials final.
Pablo McNeil, a former Olympic sprinter and his coach then, was predictably miffed with the kid’s newest practical joke and indifference to putting in the hard yards. Bolt still went on to participate in the CARIFTA games and set personal bests and Championship records as if it were the order of the day.
Still, the journey to the top of the totem pole wasn’t going to happen if he didn’t let go of his closest “ally” in those early years; indifference. Even though he was raking in medals and adulation by the dozens, the lack of dedication was a stigma and an unnecessary baggage that tagged along with him for quite some time.
He was already a revelation on the circuit with the stallion-like aura he emanated. He was physically an oddity for someone just fifteen. His legs were more pillars than anything else and they were the first things that hit you when you saw Bolt.
He turned professional in 2004 and let go of any emotional baggage to brace himself for some precocious deeds. Under the guidance of new coach Fitz Coleman, Bolt brought the house down with a junior world record, setting a 19.93 second run in the 2004 CARIFTA games, becoming the first junior sprinter to run the 200m under 20 seconds.
By the start of 2005, he had put behind him some heady successes and a heart-rending 2004 Athens Olympics disappointment due to an injury, and looked primed to come back harder. Glen Mills, his new coach, helped him tide over any remorse that he nursed and set about inculcating professionalism in his quest to be the best.
Being the best comes at a cost hard to fathom. It cost him blood, sweat and agony to be where he is today. The 2005 Helsinki World Championships saw him finishing an injury-ridden 26.27 seconds in the 200m final.
Usain Bolt – Ahead of the pack
He hadn’t yet completed a full athletic season to allow him to take on the best yet. His new training regimen, though, made sure there were enough reserves of skill and resolve to recover from this aberration. A car accident derailed his comeback plans further. He marked his return to the 200m fold emphatically, beating Justin Gatlin’s meet record in Ostrava, Czech Republic. He was doing just enough to keep a novelist interested.
Bolt claimed his first major world medal two months later at the IAAF World Athletics Final in Stuttgart, Germany. And the medal frenzy continued with wins at the senior Championships and regional Championships. Along the way, he was always pining to run 100m but Glen Mills figured it could compromise on his middle distance running abilities.
Mills then challenged Bolt to break the national 200m record and promised him permission to race for the title of the fastest man on earth – the 100m – if he did so. After hurtling to a national record-breaking 19.75s, breaking a 36-year-old record in the process, all he asked Mills was, “When is my 100m debut?”
In a way, running the 200m and 400m formats over the years greatly influenced Bolt in his 100m successes. Be it his world-record breaking runs of 9.58s at the 2009 World Championships or the 19.19s 200m run again at the same Berlin Championships, his experience with the longer distances have helped him develop into a complete sprinter.
400m runs greatly boost an athlete’s stamina and body balance at the turns. The turns hold great importance in the athletic world as they sometimes prove to be the difference between a medal-winning run and a world record run. The stamina and turn-handling abilities helped Bolt outrun any competition in 200m whatsoever.
The 200m runs, in turn, helped him greatly improve his stride frequency. This allowed him to keep knocking those hundredths of a second off his 100m timings and script flabbergasting sprints over the years, the most notable being the “double triple” he scripted at the 2008 Beijing Olympics and the 2012 London Olympics, consisting of gold medals in the 100m, 200m and the 4x100m categories.
All his achievements apart, his perch at the apogee of the sprinting world has been frantically discussed and speculated. Be it the high percentage of fast-twitch muscle that he possesses or the maddeningly low subcutaneous fat stores his body wields, everything about him is widely discussed and dissected. His West African origin is a possible theory frequently put forth to explain his insane running abilities.
While the fast-twitch muscle gives an initial burst at the start, the subcutaneous fat levels ensure both muscle-movement efficiency and increased aerodynamic profiles. The high centre of gravity allows him that much more leverage to establish that characteristic lead over his rivals as can be seen every now and then.
Nevertheless, any genetic advantages he may have had have been put to the maximum use . His truancies of early years have given way to a personality driven to be bloody fast, to be the be-all and end-all of his sport. Off the field too, he has the world eating out of his hands with an infectious charm endearing young and old alike.
The fact that he still remains an untainted athlete pacifies an audience that feels wronged by drug-powered athletes practising their trade. Bolt has himself time and again maintained that he is absolutely clean. He has reiterated his larger aim of protecting the integrity of sport and to infuse some credibility to the fold.
Watching him transform into this mean world-beating machine has been sheer joy for people even remotely interested in sport.
Just like power, with great success too comes humongous responsibility. As the shepherd of one of the greatest sprinting careers to have ever been made on planet Earth, Bolt could single-handedly hold the key to restoring fractured souls and disillusioned minds.
As the author marks his own 21st birthday today, he also believes that Bolt, at the 2016 Rio De Janeiro Games, could present one of the most enthralling prospects of an under 9.5 seconds 100m run ever; an event, if it becomes a reality, that would rank alongside the greatest inventions or discoveries ever made since civilization took its first baby steps.
