"The fact that I'd make it out alive was a miracle" - When Usain Bolt spoke on surviving car accident after the Beijing Olympics
In 2009, Usain Bolt was involved in a terrible car crash while driving home from a party in Jamaica. The sprinter miraculously walked away unhurt, while his car was totalled on the side of the road.
At the time, Bolt had been driving his BMW M3, a car gifted to him by Puma after his heroics at the Beijing Olympics. The Jamaican was reportedly speeding on a rain-slicked highway west of Kingston, and was with his brother and a female passenger in the car.
While the Olympic Champion made it out of the crash physically unscathed, the incident was certainly scary. In his 2013 autobiography, “Faster Than Lightning,” Usain Bolt opened up about the accident. He wrote:
“The fact that I'd made it out alive was a miracle. I was fully functioning too, without a bruise or a mark on my entire body. Well, apart from some thorn cuts. Several long prickles had sliced open the flesh in my bare feet as I crawled from the wreckage, and the wounds were pretty deep. But those injuries felt like small change compared to what might have happened.”
Bolt went on to add that the crash proved that God intended him to be the fastest man on Earth, which is why he was able to walk away from the incident untouched. He said:
“I took the accident to be a message from above, a sign that I'd been chosen to become The Fastest Man on Earth. My theory was that God needed me to be fit and well so I could follow the path He'd set me all those years ago when I first ran through the forest in Jamaica as a kid.”
Usain Bolt thinks his 100m world record will outlive his 200m record
In 2009, Usain Bolt made history when he clocked a 9.58 in the 100m and a 19.19 in the 200m, setting new world records for both events. Even though it has been well over a decade since the Jamaican achieved this extraordinary feat, no sprinter has come close to touching his records.
In the 100m sprint, Tyson Gay and Yohan Blake were the closest to Bolt's 9.58, each having run a 9.69 in their careers. Blake had also come close to touching the legend's mark in the 200m, having clocked a 19.26 in 2011.
Of the current active sprinters, no one seems to be closing in on the 37-year-old’s 100m record, but American World Noah Lyles is gunning for the 200m record. Lyles' best in the distance is a 19.31 achieved in 2022.
While Usain Bolt is confident that neither of his records are going down anytime soon, he thinks that the 100m world record will outlast his 200m record.
“I think the 100m's going to be harder (to break) because it's quicker, and if you make a mistake during the race you're not going to get it. It's a lot more technical so I think maybe the 100m's going to go last,” he told World Athletics: Inside Track in an interview.