Usain ‘Lightning’ Bolt bids farewell to the track
Retiring Jamaican “lightning” Bolt put on one last appearance on Sunday, the final day of the London World Championships, as the 100 metre and 200 metre world record holder went on a lap of honour in a specially arranged farewell ceremony in front of the sold-out spectators.
The 11-time world champion and eight-time Olympic gold medallist made a final signature arrow-shooting stance and then left the track for good, Xinhua reports.
“I’ve proven that by working hard, anything is possible. For me, I was sitting down today and doing an interview. My motto is anything is possible,” said the 30-year-old.
“It shows that everyone should continue trying. I personally feel this is a good message to send to youngsters to push on. If I can leave that to the younger generation, then that’s a good legacy to leave,” Bolt told a packed news conference.
The end of Bolt’s career was far from perfect, a bronze in the 100m and he didn’t make the finish line of his last race, the 4x100m relay as he had to limp off the track with injury.
“One championship doesn’t change what I’ve done. After losing the 100m someone said to me, ‘Muhammad Ali lost his last fight so don’t be too stressed.’
“I have shown my credentials throughout my career so losing my last race isn’t going to change what I’ve done in my sport,” said Bolt.
Bolt said right now he had no plan for the future and just wanted to do things he previously couldn’t as an athlete, such as “have a party and have a drink”.
But no matter what he will do in the future, Bolt said he would not return to run again.
“I have seen too many people retire and come back and just make it worse, shame themselves. So I personally won’t. I won’t be those stars to come back,” he said.
After the lap of honour, Bolt received a framed part of the London track from London mayor Sadiq Khan and Sebastian Coe, head of the ruling body IAAF, who often speaks highly of the legendary runner.
FOR MORE than a week I’ve been seething with anger and frustration that the global body has made such a mockery of international track and field athletics.
It sounds like I’m shocked when I shouldn’t be, but it does make me wonder about the future of the sport when there are zero indications right now of any progressiveness. Let me get this off my chest first – why were we subjected to watching a serial doper win the men’s 100m gold?
I’m not asking because I’m a Usain Bolt fan or because I wanted the fairytale ending for the planet’s fastest man… No, I’m asking because it was a big, fat slap in the face watching Bolt (and silver medallist Christian Coleman) lose to 35-year old two-time doping offender, Justin Gatlin.
I have written about and questioned the IAAF’s decision to allow Gatlin to compete when no one honestly believes he is clean and I think the fact that he is five years Bolt’s senior, has served two doping bans and gets faster as he gets older is proof that he and the IAAF have made an absolute mockery of the sport. How is it humanly possible to get faster as you get older – clean?
All indications were there in the build-up to the champs that Bolt wasn’t going to be at his absolute best, having been plagued by injuries and then grief after losing his good friend, Germaine Mason, and I think we would have been okay with the result had the top three not included a doper.
As if that wasn’t enough to make all of us want to gag, there was a repeat Caster Semenya storyline. After testing, global scrutiny and humiliation over the past few years, she was declared 100% eligible to compete in women’s events and yet there are and probably will continue to be question marks about her eligibility.
I was particularly disgusted by an article written by Briton, Katie Hopkins, who went further by implying that British athlete Lynsey Sharp was disqualified in 800m semi-final heat “to placate the Caster Semenya furore”, and she also posted one of Semenya’s wedding photos, asking the IAAF to look into the fact that in her personal life “she identifies as male but in athletics she identifies as female”.
The sad reality is that Caster and others like her will always be subjected to this nastiness, and that’s because the IAAF chooses not to keep up with the times – how much longer can we or should we just have male or female as gender options?
Social media site Facebook gives its users three pronouns to choose from – “him”, “her” or “their” and has at least 58 gender options to choose from – the human race is evolving and nothing is black or white anymore, which is why sport needs to be much more inclusive moving forward, or run the risk of excluding many talented individuals.
IT WAS certainly worth the long, agonising wait for the Premier League to kick off, for the first time ever on a Friday night when Arsenal faced off with former champions Leicester City.
Most of the Arsenal fans I spoke to weren’t expecting a win and they almost got what they expected – pretty much the Arsenal of old, along with the usual #WengerOut trending on Twitter.
Saturday dished out some surprising results with Chelsea the biggest losers on the day, becoming second after Leicester not to win their opening fixture as reigning champions, while Liverpool kicked off the new season with a 3-3 draw at Watford.
Just one game in and there are already bets on which manager will be the first to get the axe – names in the hat already are Antonio Conte and Jurgen Klopp.
The weekend ended in fantastic fashion when Manchester United walloped West Ham with an entertaining 4-0 home win that will hopefully set the tone for a season laden with more trophies along with Premier League and Champions League glory. It was also exciting to watch the débutantes score for their respective clubs – Alexandre Lacazette (Arsenal); Mohamed Salah (Liverpool); Wayne Rooney (second Everton debut); Alvaro Morata (Chelsea) and Romelu Lukaku (Manchester United).
I have no doubt that Jose Mourinho is targeting the League title this season and at the very least, a quarter-final UCL spot. Lukaku and Matic proved in just their first outing to be good buys. It will be interesting to see what sort of business is done especially with some deals still in the pipeline involving some notable names, including Philippe Coutinho, Mezut Ozil, Alexis Sanchez and Ivan Perisic.