I AM LEGEND
Usain Bolt shoots from the lip
THE first time I met Usain Bolt, I flew all the way from Britain to Boston, Massachusetts, and spent nine minutes with the guy. He was promoting a new brand of trainers for one of his sponsors. Asked afterwards by friends what the fastest man in history was like, I said: “Quick.” It raised a few weak laughs. That was back in 2009. Bolt was already, following his sprint triumphs at the Beijing Olympics, a global star. Now, having defended all three gold medals at London 2012, his fame and popularity are all the greater. The word popularity, actually, doesn’t do justice to the man’s status: the word legend might for once be appropriate.
Asked to name the coolest, most admirable, unequivocally superb character on the planet, my teenaged children put Bolt a close second (not a position with which he is familiar) to Nelson Mandela.
Despite such dizzying celebrity, and while he has not (well, only fractionally) slowed down on the track over the past few years, Bolt appears less hasty off it. This time around, we speak for over an hour. And I don’t have to go to the US, but instead no further than Brunel University in West London.
Bolt, along with many of his Jamaican teammates, trains in Britain during the European track and field season. Now
Asked to name the coolest, most admirable, unequivocally superb character on the planet, my teenaged children put Bolt a close second to Nelson Mandela — The writer’s teenaged children
that’s over, he will fly home to Kingston for a week. Then it’s back to Britain to launch his autobiography, Faster Than
Lightning. Busy boy, then. That book lies on the table between us. Bolt — who admits he didn’t write it, merely approved it — is seeing the finished product for the first time, admiring the cover, feeling the heft, poring over the pictures. He seems pleased enough. His previous autobiography came out in those far-off days of 2010.
This new effort, however, according to the accompanying blurb, is special. Why? Because it’s the lad’s first “full-length” account of his 27 years to date. That’s all right, then.
On second thoughts, let’s park the sarcasm. Who would not forgive Bolt for milking his moment to the max? Nothing other than talent and application has made that moment stretch much further than such moments usually do.
A sprinter’s career is generally even briefer than a footballer’s — more of which shortly — and Bolt accepts that he is already at his peak. His still astonishing world record of 9.58sec for the 100m has stood for four years. Can he run faster?
“The possibility is getting tighter,” he admits. “If it doesn’t happen next year, I think that’s it.”
As for anyone else breaking his record, he says, “We’ll see. In time, I guess. A great athlete comes round every decade.”
Party-boy image
He will, he says, retire after the Rio Olympics in 2016, aged 30. Then he wants to become a professional footballer. He’s serious.
“I’m not expecting to be a Ronaldo. But I watch football a lot. I see some people, they’re not that good.”
He plays with friends, likes to stay out of trouble on the wing.
“I’m all right, skilful. I can pass and I’m quick.”
Oh really, I say, you’re quick are you? Bolt acknowledges the joke with a laugh louder than it deserves. “I like to laugh,” he says.
This easy humour is part of Bolt’s charm. He doesn’t take himself too seriously. He clowns about, works the crowd, likes to party, eats fast food, downs a Guinness — and still beats everyone hands down.
The fastest man in history — and just an ordinary, fun-lovin’ guy. Who’s also ultra-cool. And charismatic. And likeable. As a persona, it’s a combination that pretty much guarantees universal adoration.
Obviously, Bolt is anything but ordinary and, like all top sportsmen, most of his life is spent training (in his book he writes, “I’d fall off the track in agony after intense training sessions. I’d dream of a time when the pain might end for good”), resting and watching TV. But there’s just enough truth in the party-boy image for people to buy it.
“I like to go out, but mostly, I don’t. Then every time I go out, they say, ‘Oh, he’s partying too much.’ ”
During the London Olympics, he says, he never went out at all.
“The first day in the village we went for lunch, it was chaos. My friends had to be bodyguards for me. So I stayed in.”
So how about the drink, then? Is that true?
“I do drink. Guinness.” What’s the most he would drink on a night out?
“With Guinness, I probably could go to five.” Cans? “In Jamaica it’s in bottles.” And the fast food? “My diet is much better now. I have a cook. I’ve tried to cut out the fried food. Sometimes on the weekend if I feel like fried food, I have fried food. I don’t tell anybody.”
As for the clowning around on the track — throwing shapes, putting up imaginary umbrellas when it’s raining, celebrating one victory by doing push-ups — some of it is planned, some of it spontaneous.
“My friends give me ideas and sometimes I’ll go, ‘No,’ sometimes I’ll go, ‘Ah, that’s kinda cool.’ It depends on the vibe. The crowd loves thinking, ‘What is he gonna do?’ Sometimes, I do nothing. It’s suspense. I don’t want to do anything not inspired, anything dumb.”
Crossing himself and looking to the heavens as he settles into his blocks — that is for real. He was brought up in rural Jamaica as a Seventh Day Adventist and still goes to church.
“I always pray the night before a race.” What does he say? “I ask for protection and for help to go out and do my best.” Does he ask to win? “I never ask to win. God helps those who help themselves. I ask Him to help me do my best.”
Do you believe He does help you? “I do believe that, yes.”
If demonstrating good judgment in matters of cool is one observation often made about Bolt’s island, another is that its inhabitants have turned being laid-back into an art form. A stereotype, of course — yet one that, on occasions, Bolt’s behaviour has appeared eager to confirm.
Indeed, until relatively recently, a talent for relaxation threatened to derail what experts had, since the staggering speed evident in his schooldays, predicted would be a stellar career.
Gonna be the best
“When I first went on the circuit everybody was beating me,” he remembers, of the period around 2006. “I thought, ‘This doesn’t make sense.’ My coach explained that everybody on the circuit is talented. It’s who works on their talent the most that is gonna be the best. All I wanted to do was enjoy myself. I didn’t train as hard as I should.
“I said, ‘Why can’t I win?’ My coach said, ‘Because you don’t do the gym; you are weak. It makes no sense to keep running if you don’t put the work in.’
“I thought, ‘Let’s give this a chance, see what can happen. I’m gonna go all in.’ I went to the gym, and felt the change the next season.”
He has rarely looked back
He says he wants to become a professional footballer. ‘I'm not expecting to be a Ronaldo. But I watch football a lot. I see some people, they're not that good. I'm all right. I can pass and I'm quick’
since. Rarely looked forward, either, and seen another man in front of him.
“I know if I get the first 40m right they’re not gonna catch me. After that, my long legs are an advantage. That’s my favourite part: you feel like you’re winding up, then, whoosh, you go, your stride’s fully open, like turning the turbos on.”
It kept me in line
Growing up in Trelawny (his parents ran the village grocery; the family was neither rich nor poor, he says), he was full of energy — always running, playing cricket, playing football. But he didn’t apply himself.
“In school, I’d miss training, go and play video games. I’d get in at six, my dad (Wellesley) would ask, ‘How was training?’ I’d say, ‘Yeah, good.’ Then someone told him. He’d give me a couple of chances, then he’d discipline me.”
How? “With a belt, his hand, depends what mood he was in. I’m happy that happened. I learnt a lot. It kept me in line. Very serious man, my dad.”
Jennifer, Bolt’s mother, was indulgent. Usain is her only child (his half-sister and halfbrother have a different mother).
“At home I would do nothing. I’d just sit around. I wouldn’t make my bed or help with the dishes or anything. My mum would do everything. She’d get a taxi to take me to school. She spoilt me.”
Does she still? “Now I spoil her. She loves to travel. She’s just been in Europe: Prague, Munich, Budapest. My dad is not a big traveller. He loves being at home. Like me.”
Staying near his mum was one reason Bolt didn’t opt, as many talented Jamaican athletes do, to take a sports scholarship at an American university after school. He also couldn’t bear the idea of living anywhere cold.
He went to college in Kingston but dropped out after a term. “I’d pick up a book after training and fall asleep. I was wasted-tired.”
Academic work hadn’t suited him at school, he says, but his dad had pushed him to do it, so he had. “I was into history and literature.”
Not the history of track and field, though. When US sprint legend Carl Lewis started
I never really think about being the fastest man ever. So somebody calls and says, ‘Hey, you’re no longer the fastest man in the world.’ But being a champion, that stays for ever
making allegations about the supposed laxity of Jamaica’s drug-testing regime, Bolt didn’t know who he was.
“And I’m happy I didn’t know. I used to answer his comments, but now I don’t want to get him any attention at all. A lot of old athletes say things to keep themselves in the limelight. They’re always negative. They should move on and find something else to do.”
That’s what he intends to do, he says, when his time comes. He has various business interests. If a professional football contract is not forthcoming, has he made enough money not to have to work again?
“I’m getting there. I’ve done well for myself.”
He’s bought a lot of property in Jamaica and is looking to expand into Miami and London.
“I’m looking for land to build my dream house.”
His other ambition is to start a family. “I’m very good with kids. When I was growing up and my two little cousins came over I was always the babysitter.”
But for now, he hasn’t met the right girl yet? “I’m dating one lady in Jamaica. It’s not official yet. Hopefully it’ll work out. I don’t want to say who it is yet. You’ll know in time.”
His previous relationship, with an English girl, ended shortly after the London Olympics, after which she talked to the press. “We had started, but the distance meant it wouldn’'t have worked out.”
Are they still friends? “No. I’m not gonna be happy if my life comes in the papers. If we decide it’s okay to talk about it, sure; but if you decide, I don’t wanna be your friend. For me that’s not a trustworthy person. Things happen in life that you want to be secret.”
Less hassle is good
By and large, though, he gets a good press. “I keep it simple. I don’t do dramatic stuff.
I don’t get drunk. Some people do things to get noticed. I’m not that type of person. If I could make the money I make and not be famous it wouldn’t bother me. Less hassle is always good.
“One thing that annoys me a little,” he goes on, “is if people say I’m arrogant, seem cocky. I don’t know why they say that.”
Well, in your book, I say, you do write about how you are a legend.
“Yeah, but I am a legend,” he says. “If I am a legend and I can’t say it, what sense does that make? It’s not arrogant. It’s a fact.” Fair point.
“You know,” he adds, “I never really think about being the fastest man ever.
“I’ve learnt that records come and go. I could be sitting here talking to you and somebody calls and says, ‘Hey, you’re no longer the fastest man in the world.’
“But being a champion, that stays for ever. I’ve been Olympic champion six times. I want to make it nine and make history.”