Bolting into history
Usain Bolt completed the ultimate “double double”, doing what no athlete had ever done, retaining both the 100m and 200m titles in the Olympics. He also laid fair claim to being one of the greatest athletes ever, right up there with Emil Zatopek, Paavo Nurmi, Lasse Viren and Jesse Owens. He obliterated the record of America’s controversial Carl Lewis, who did the 100m-200m double once in 1984 and retained the 100m title in 1988 only because Ben Johnson was disqualified as a drug cheat.
There was no narrative drama in the race. Bolt was one of the quickest off the block, and led virtually from start to finish, never looking in danger of being challenged. If not for a twinge in the back, forcing him to ease off in the last 20 metres, Bolt could have lowered the Olympic record.
Racers Track Club, which put three men on the podium in 200m, is situated in one of the world’s poorest places — Kingston, Jamaica. It symbolises an ode to performance as coach Glen Mills takes the unique honour of training speedy men like Bolt and Blake, not to forget Warren Weir. The club proves the point that talent plus training can make an unbeatable combination that world sport’s richest superpowers can do little about. In sprint racing, riddled with controversy due to a history of doping offences — as athletes bulk up and tone their bodies to convert flab into pure muscle — Bolt promises an era of clean racing that’s hard to envisage in a professional age.
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