Usain Bolt: The incredible “timekeeper”

Usain Bolt – Evolution of a man

It’s about 9.30 in the morning at Sherwood Content in the parish town of Trelawney. The chastening sunlight flaunted by the woody interiors of the household makes him grimace playfully. He sits on the bed, legs bobbing about on the floor and arms cupping the bend of his bed on either side, in contemplation.

Fleeting memories of the past allow him a smile. Time and again he has kept his word and time, itself! The title of the “fastest man alive” is an elixir he dabs into each morning. And for someone who has practically lived by the clock all his life, it is fitting that this article begins with time, talks about time and yes, honours this incredible “timekeeper”!

And it’s now time for Usain Bolt to hit the gym. He sweeps aside his reveries and a brilliantly variegated blanket, strictly in that order, and sets off for his morning ablutions. While he is at it, we embark upon on a journey about the man, his unabated gold rush and why, even on his 27th birthday, Bolt could well be hungrier than ever before.

Watching him before a race reminds one of the court jesters employed by erstwhile kings and emperors – gallivanting about, dishing out his famed caricatures, breaking into impromptu jigs, et al. The flushed faces flanking him at the start make for intriguing view. He stands tall in the middle: 6-foot-five and confident, in a sea of yellow and green representing Jamaican colours.

Bolt is in the air, his competitors sense, while all Bolt can sense is he, himself. You could go green with envy at the citadels of success he has erected or you may choose to uncork the grit behind the unplugged golden run he has had; nevertheless, you concede to Bolt being in the air!

For someone who had a bit of every sport in him, running was an adventure he chanced upon. Football and cricket were dear to him in high school and so the switch to track and field events didn’t happen until an astonished cricket coach urged him to do so.

Even though he was the fastest 100m sprinter of his school as early as 12, the first time Bolt himself felt a passion for track and field was after his silver medal in a 200m event of the High School Championships. Though he “felt a passion”, it never really showed in his training or the lack of it, as he took his feelings for practical jokes to elite levels.

His performances on the field screamed for attention while his off-field theatrics once landed him a police detention. He hid in the back of a van when he should have actually been limbering up for his 200m CARIFTA trials final.

Pablo McNeil, a former Olympic sprinter and his coach then, was predictably miffed with the kid’s newest practical joke and indifference to putting in the hard yards. Bolt still went on to participate in the CARIFTA games and set personal bests and Championship records as if it were the order of the day.

Still, the journey to the top of the totem pole wasn’t going to happen if he didn’t let go of his closest “ally” in those early years; indifference. Even though he was raking in medals and adulation by the dozens, the lack of dedication was a stigma and an unnecessary baggage that tagged along with him for quite some time.

He was already a revelation on the circuit with the stallion-like aura he emanated. He was physically an oddity for someone just fifteen. His legs were more pillars than anything else and they were the first things that hit you when you saw Bolt.

He turned professional in 2004 and let go of any emotional baggage to brace himself for some precocious deeds. Under the guidance of new coach Fitz Coleman, Bolt brought the house down with a junior world record, setting a 19.93 second run in the 2004 CARIFTA games, becoming the first junior sprinter to run the 200m under 20 seconds.

By the start of 2005, he had put behind him some heady successes and a heart-rending 2004 Athens Olympics disappointment due to an injury, and looked primed to come back harder. Glen Mills, his new coach, helped him tide over any remorse that he nursed and set about inculcating professionalism in his quest to be the best.