BOLT THE ONLY MAN IN ALI’S LEAGUE
We’re missing him already, obviously. Now Usain Bolt has surrendered his place at the summit of athletics to a drugs cheat in the sprint, and a runner whose nationality went on sale to the highest bidder in the 200 metres, the sport already knows what it has lost.
When he steps off the track for the final time in London tonight, it will be the end of a sporting era defined by Bolt’s presence. Who knows when we will see its like again?
Before Bolt, there was Muhammad Ali, the last great athlete to transcend the arena and captivate the globe. ‘Ali could gaze out of airplane windows, down at Lagos, down at Paris and Madras, and be assured that almost everyone alive knew who he was,’ wrote David remnick in his biography, King of the World.
As social media shrinks our planet, a rising number of sport’s celebrities can boast that. Yet Cristiano ronaldo, even Lionel Messi, could not claim to be universally loved, as Ali was, or Bolt is.
That love, that humanity, is what sets them apart. There are great sporting men and women, there always will be. But two share the pinnacle. Like Ali before him, Bolt is everybody’s guy. His is a universal fan club, an appeal beyond mere admiration, or even hero worship. He belongs to us all. His character steps out of the film we are watching and speaks. This is what we lose when he runs his last tonight.
Not just a supreme athlete, but the sportsman of a lifetime. And not just of this generation, but of previous and future generations, too. There was a quarter of a century between Ali and Bolt. There could be that again between Bolt and his successor; maybe even longer.
Watching the sport attempt to promote Wayde van Niekerk as worthy of Bolt’s inheritance is pitiful. Van Niekerk is a good runner. We’ve seen good runners. Athletics meetings are full of them. Bolt was different; Bolt was a shooting star. It was his personality that strode away from madenot onewill be else alwaysthe with capturedwill field,the win win widerthe thetheor replaced.100m. 100m. connectionworld SomeonethatBut Some-can-that he someone heavyweight cannot championbe Bolt; since just — as and no there have been many good ones — has ever been Ali.
Between his last fight against Trevor Berbick on December 11, 1981 and Bolt’s first Olympic gold at the 2008 Games in Beijing, was a stretch of 26 years. There were incredible sporting feats and individuals in that time. Michael Jordan played out his entire career; Tiger Woods won all of his majors. Yet neither man, legends of the game, commanded the global gaze like Bolt or Ali.
THeIr sports have much to do with it. What events have the universality of a fight or a foot race? Simple, pure, familiar to every citizen of every nation. Woods was immense, but there are the best part of entire continents that will never understand the majesty of a well-struck one-iron.
Jordan is arguably the NBA’s greatest but in his time major basketball matches were rarely glimpsed in countries such as the UK. At Jordan’s peak, few here could even have told you what position he played. They just knew the name. Ali was known everywhere, his exploits shown everywhere — even in British cinemas — and Bolt too. Their titles were the blue rib-
and mentthe— couldall bodyletesIn accessiblelook world,of a are still— do world athleticfun, heavyweightdistancedwhat wants fastestin too. and prowessBolt whichto No relatable.manbe fromdid. wonderin the championandin He his the the best achieve- Nobodymadegang. public every-world ath-of it by ernas a selfieif money celebrity,he was away and one fromBoltthe chance trappingsalways becoming meeting appearedof a mod-new and bestBut met if half mate.he wonof Plainly,the the Swedish Olympicthis wasn’t women’sgold true.and handball photographs team wouldon his end way up out, acrossthe every national newspaper. He ate chicken nuggets. He occasionally ran with his shoelaces undone. He was the ultimate star, yet also the everyman. It’s too hard an act to just pull off. It could only come naturally. Some think it a shame that his last race, tonight, will be as part of a team, not an individual. Yet, if anything, it will shine an even greater light on what makes him special. From the moment he enters, he will command the stage. All eyes on Bolt, as ever.
even as one leg of a relay he will remain the focus of attention. One last brilliant smile; one last mug for the camera; one last round of selfies; one last pose; one last wave; one last race. And then, gone.
Who knows when we will see his like again? Whatever the result, there will be sadness. It is not just athletics that has lost its greatest star; just as it wasn’t boxing alone that said a teary farewell to Ali.