Bolt says he must win due to scandal
next month, Bolt adamantly responds: “I’m not going to lose one of the golds, for sure.”
In his final lengthy media appointment before heading to Rio de Janeiro, Bolt spent around two hours over a Jamaican lunch last week in London, discussing his Olympic challenge prospects and the challenges of life.
When letting his guard down does Bolt sounded less invincible. Weighing on the Jamaican sprinter’s mind is the fear of hitting 30 next month, the toll of injuries — and even being caught up in an extremist attack.
“It is scary,” said Bolt, adopting a rare subdued tone. “But if you live scared, you don’t live at all.”
Bolt recalls being in Munich as news emerged of the truck attack in Nice on Bastille Day — July 14 — that killed 84 people. Munich was itself the scene of bloodshed last week when a teenager shot dead nine people.
Bolt usually goes to Munich every three months to visit his doctor.
“Especially at the start of last year I noticed that injuries take a little bit more time to get back to where you want to be,” Bolt said. “My coach always tells me that the older you get it’s going to get harder, and you have to push yourself.”
But coach Glenn Mills also offered him comforting reassurance Bolt still craves, despite being the 100- and 200-meter world record holder.
Bolt remembers Mills telling him “don’t worry you’re a champ” at the world championships a year ago.
It was “one of the roughest years,” Bolt said, explaining how his back issue “has really deteriorated over the years.”
Bolt’s preparations for the defense of his Olympic titles (100, 200 and 400-meter relay) have been far from smooth, with a hamstring injury forcing him out of the Jamaican trials.
“I always have little doubts in my mind,” Bolt said in the restaurant. “But I’m focused and ready to go.”
Unlike many of the world’s top golfers, who have snubbed the chance to go to their first Olympics.
“I guess it’s not as important to them as it is to us who have been competing over the years,” Bolt said.
The Olympics are unquestionably the pinnacle of track and field. But providing the spectacle desired is proving difficult for the men.
“This year is one of the poorest I have ever seen as an Olympic [field] for men really — the women have really shown more promise running fast times,” Bolt said. “[The men] have really unperformed this season, but I’m sure when we get to the Olympics it won’t be like that.”
The power of athletics in attracting big audiences would be more difficult without its global superstar.
“People always say to me, ‘Usain when you leave the sport, the sport is going to go down,’” Bolt said. “But I’m not going to look at it like that. There are a lot of athletes stepping up.”
Plans to overhaul the sport and make it more exciting have been sidetracked by the Russian scandal.
The vast majority of the Russian athletes who will miss the Rio Games are in track and field, where 67 of its 68 athletes were ruled out when a ban on the Russian team was upheld at the Court of Arbitration for Sport last week.
Sebastian Coe, head of track and field’s governing body, has to deal with that.
But Coe is also the man tasked with making track and field “more exciting,” as Bolt explains.
“I’m assuming Seb Coe has a plan,” said Bolt, who advocates more street races. “Over time with different ideas, and the athletes that are coming up, the sport will stay current. It will take a while but I think it will get back to its former glory when I walk away.”
Unless he decides to continue, Bolt’s glory era is due to end after the 2017 world championships in London.
He is absolutely certain he will be greatly missed.
“In football you have the debate who is the best footballer, but no one can debate who the fastest man in the world is,” Bolt said.