From the publishers of THE HINDU VOL.31 :: NO.52 :: Dec. 27, 2008 • Contents
	YEAR-END SPECIAL / ATHLETICS/USAIN BOLT’S GRAND TREBLE Flying Jamaican Usain Bolt’s blinding runs in the 100m, 200m and 4x100m in Beijing made him the first man ever to have set world record times in all three events and the first person after Carl Lewis to have swept these races in a single Olympics. By Kunal Diwan. Recklessness has its own allure, and only the supremely gifted can afford to entertain it in the savage world of international sport. Recklessness, however, can be rather worthy of viewership when it assumes the form of an arrogant traipse down the annals of athletic excellence. The traipse, in case of Usain Bolt at the Beijing Olympics, was replaced by something much faster: three propulsive bursts of speed that led to a radical makeover of the record books and left the also-rans panting to bring up the rear. Bolt’s blinding runs in the 100m, 200m and 4x100m in Beijing made him the first man ever to have set world record times in all three events and the first person after Carl Lewis to have swept these races in a single Olympics. The 6ft. 5in former pace-bowling aspirant arrived in Beijing with the 100m world record under his belt — a wind-aided 9.72 s effort at the Reebok Grand Prix in New York in May. Already, opponents had begun to be awed by his massive physical presence. “It looked like his knees were going past my face,” Tyson Gay had said after losing his world mark to Bolt in New York. Qualifying for the Beijing 100m final with times of 9.92s and 9.85s, Bolt breasted the tape in the race that mattered, after the much-maligned torso-slapping act, in a blurry 9.69s, an improvement on his own world record. The most amazing part of his achievement was that he set a new mark despite no favourable wind, an unpardonable slowing down in the concluding moments of the race, and an untied shoelace. Experts later predicted that the Jamaican would have ended the race in a textbook-defying 9.55s had he not slowed down at the finish to indulge in a session of showboating. “I wasn’t bragging. When I saw I wasn’t covered, I was just happy,” Bolt explained. Four days later, on the eve of his 22nd birthday, the focus shifted to the 200m final, after he had coasted through the preliminaries with his eyes fixed firmly on Carl Lewis’s twin wins at the 1984 Los Angeles Olympics. Making light of 0.9m/s headwind, he yet again separated himself from the pack and earned himself another gold in another WR time of 19.30s, displacing Michael Johnson’s mark of 12 years. The feat made Bolt the first sprinter since compatriot Donald Quarrie to hold both the 100m and 200m world records simultaneously. But Bolt wasn’t finished as yet. Running the third leg in the Jamaican 4x100 metres relay team, he bagged one more gold medal along with team-mates Nesta Carter, Michael Frater and Asafa Powell. The Jamaican quartet whittled three-tenths of a second off the existing world mark. The most remarkable aspect of Usain Bolt’s records was that they were achieved in events that scientists have long claimed to be approaching plateau-phase stagnation as far as timings are concerned. The human body, if one goes by research, is capable of exerting itself only so much, even after one takes into consideration factors such as evolutionary progress, advances in training and equipment, and the physical limits of what muscle and tissue can achieve. In less than 10 seconds, Bolt made one wonder if there were any species limits to running speeds. What can one say, except that Bolt’s success story was a vindication of years of ‘promise’— an ill-defined term at the best of times — and that his school cricket coach back in Jamaica had made the absolutely correct decision when, after noticing his protégé’s rapid gallops, he compelled young Usain to barter the red cherry for a pair of spikes. Five years ago, the legendary American sprinter Michael Johnson expressed fear that the then precociously talented Bolt may wilt under “undue pressure”. “It’s all about what he does four or five years down the line,” Johnson had said. Post-Beijing, Bolt’s name sporting lure is secure for posterity and its intriguing to note what he may do from here, since at 22 years, he has just about started to peak. Indeed, lab rats may just be a little wary of what results may spring once he has done away with the chest-thumping routine. Printer friendly page   Send this article to Friends by E-Mail Contents • Daily Sports • The Hindu • Business Line • Frontline • Publications • eBooks • Images Copyright © 2008 Sportstar Republication or redissemination of the contents of this screen are expressly prohibited without the written consent of Sportstar.