"I looked down and saw they were on the wrong foot"- When Usain Bolt opened up on being nervous before his 'best moment' as an athlete
Usain Bolt opened up and shared several unheard stories from his career in his 2016 documentary I am Bolt.
The legendary Olympic sprinter spoke in detail about his younger days and rise as an athlete. He preferred to play cricket as a youngster but picked up track and field later on after receiving the advice of his school coach.
In the documentary, Usain Bolt recalled the exact moment where he was gearing up to hit the track before his 200m final at the World Championships in 2002. This was his first World Championship final on home soil as they were being held in Kingston Jamaica.
Then 15, Bolt recalled the nervousness and the anxiety to go out and perform in front of the home crowd. He remembered hearing their loud chant which made him instantly nervous.
"I heard their chants 'Bolt, Bolt'. I instantly, I just got nervous. My legs were shaking, my hands were shaking. I was so weak," he said.
Describing how nervousness got the best out of him, he recalled wearing his spikes on the wrong foot.
"I was trying to put on my spikes. Put on one foot, I was trying to put on the other one it wouldn't go on. I looked down and I saw they were on the wrong foot and I was like 'This is not good,'" he said.
Furthermore, he went on to describe how winning the World Junior Championships in Kingston was his best moment.
"People always say what was your best moment and that is my best moment. First time I won a proper gold medal, I mean a world gold medal and it was in front of my people. That's where it all started," he said.
Usain Bolt at the 2008 Summer Olympics
Two years after the 2002 World Championships, Usain Bolt made his Olympic debut at the Athens Olympics in 2004, but could not qualify beyond the heats of the 200m. As the years passed, he went on to improve his performances tremendously, starting with 2008 Summer Olympics.
Bolt competed in the 100m, 200m as well as the 4x100m relay at the event. He marched into the 100m as the world record holder, having set the record in May 2008 and finished first, clocking 9.69 s to break his own world record.
Usain Bolt won the gold medal in the 200m as well, clocking a new world record of 19.30 s. He beat the record set by legendary sprinter Carl Lewis during his double gold medal win at the Los Angeles Olympics in 1984. Bolt and his teammates went on to win the gold medal in the 4x100m relay clocking a world record time of 37.10s.
However, in 2017, their relay gold medal was taken away as one of Bolt's teammates, Nesta Carter's blood sample tested positive for a banned substance.