PITY THE ALSO-RANS
Bolt strolls into 100m semi-finals . . . with time for sightseeing
SPARE a thought for James Dasaolu and the other folk who commit their lives to running fast down tracks.
Take yesterday, for instance. Britain’s Dasaolu and seven other men turned up in the Joao Havelange Stadium for the seventh heat of the 100m and to a man they contorted faces, bulged veins and tried to justify the past four years. They ran hard, they focused, and some ‘executed’, as they say.
Then there was the tall chap in lane six. The others went to work and Usain Bolt went for a jog. They executed; he killed with sheer indifference.
He finished the heat in 10.07 seconds after a particularly poor start and an 80m stroll. And that is all it was. A loosener, a trip from A to B with time factored in for sightseeing. As he closed in on the line, he took a look to his left, a look to his right and another look to his left. Nope, no worries here, no worries there, save those legs for tonight’s semi-finals and final.
That final is where he will run into Justin Gatlin, assuming neither man falls down a hole in the meantime, and that is where he will write the ending to the story of these Games.
Gatlin was watching Bolt on a television in the stadium after winning his own heat in a quicker time of 10.01, the fastest man in the world this year and the fastest of the first round.
If he was looking for signs of weakness in his great, clean rival he will have seen something — the start was so poor Bolt was one of the last to get clear of his blocks. Against the sharper athletes like Gatlin, that could put him in a bit of a bind.
But if there were any doubts about Bolt’s fitness, they have been largely allayed. One of the great unknowns of this meeting has been Bolt’s condition, given the hamstring injury that had him flying to Germany for treatment recently. But the 29-yearold Jamaican looked in exceptional shape yesterday, perhaps even his best ever, according to Colin Jackson.
You can’t possibly look so comfortable in pulling in and spitting out an Olympic field without a healthy body, so against that backdrop the great narrative of the Games is on. Bolt v Gatlin, the phenomenon versus the convicted doper.
It happened at the world championships last year and it will happen again here tonight, all being well. It is perhaps simplistic to paint them entirely as embodiments of sporting good and sporting evil but the truth is in that general direction.
More than that, there is a sense that the Games, with its swimming pool doping rows, needs a winner who doesn’t come with a toxic shadow.
For Gatlin, now 34 and 12 years on from Olympic gold, there is a constant battle against that past and his offences. It was put to him yesterday that Lilly King, the US swimmer, had said multiple violators such as Gatlin shouldn’t be here.
‘I don’t even know who Lilly King is,’ he snapped back. ‘She does swimming, not track and field, so I’m not worried about that.’ With that, he quickly left the mixed zone and the mass of recording equipment, soon to be replaced by Bolt and a far, far bigger scrum.
He didn’t have much to say but then again he rarely needs to. He smiles, he gestures, he pretends to be a director co-ordinating all the cameras and people lap it up. He is the showman.
‘I’m happy to get the first one out, it felt OK,’ he said. ‘It wasn’t the best start, it was a bit sluggish. Hopefully tomorrow I can go much smoother.
‘I’m feeling good, I’m happy. Now it’s all about execution and getting it right when it comes to the final.’
Getting it right in finals is what he does. Quite aside from the opposi- tion he must beat, the incredible fact is that Bolt is going for his third straight Olympic treble of 100m, 200m and 4x100m relay, having also collected nine world titles.
Those are absurd numbers, though good things come to an end in sport and if anything is going to expose ageing in those legs it will be a schedule of eight races in seven days.
But with one down, he is on his way. The question is whether he has timed his run correctly, given he arrived after an underwhelming year. Gatlin has delivered the two fastest times of 2016, with 9.8sec and 9.83sec. Bolt’s best effort has been 9.88sec.
Yet the Jamaican also casts a spell like no other. It is the view of folk in athletics that Bolt’s mere presence in last year’s grand showdown at the world championships caused Gatlin to ‘bottle it’. He will need greater composure to wreck the fairytale on this marvellous stage, particularly with Bolt’s camp suggesting he is ready to run 9.7sec.
That would take the race out of the reach of just about everyone except Gatlin, who ran 9.74 last year. The dreamers and triers and runners who have qualified, such as Britain’s CJ Ujah and Dasaolu, would be far behind.
Spare them a thought.