Published : Sept. 6, 2011 - 18:59
Can a man be faulted for wanting a revolving bed? For being so cheeky that he starts to learn Spanish to better woo members of the opposite sex, instead of just staring at them? For unashamedly loving to party and, most important of all in his case, knowingly under-utilizing a world-beating talent unique in the history of sport?
In answer to that last question: If that man is Usain Bolt, yes, he can.
To second-guess and doubt Bolt after he ran the fourth-fastest 200 meters ever on Saturday and topped that Sunday by anchoring Jamaica to a world record in the 400 relay may seem ungenerous and petty, akin to quibbling with perfection.
Bolt’s electric performances and crowd-charming antics make track and field attractive after so many years when doping cases made it repellent. His records rewrite our understanding of what humans can do. Having given all this and more to his sport, it may seem greedy, like the unreasonable demands of a spoiled child, to expect Bolt to keep delivering, to keep pushing boundaries, to make us even happier.
(MCT)
But the fact remains that Bolt, by his own admission, could blow us away even more if he really put his mind to it. His biography published last year made for disturbing reading because, in it, the fastest human ever acknowledged that he doesn’t like to train or to live as well as he could or should, suggesting that he could run faster still if only he could be bothered.
“I’m so lucky that I’m raw talent. If I really worked at it I could be extremely good indeed, but I never have. Yes, I put the effort in at times, but I could do more,” he said. “If I train right, eat right, go to the gym all the time and dedicate myself 100 percent then I definitely will do crazy times ... It’s hard, man. I don’t know how some sportsmen do it,”
“I’m not a conventional athlete,” he also said. “I do what I like, stay up till whatever time I feel like, socialize when I like and eat what I like. I don’t follow any of the rules.”
Maybe Bolt, an incorrigible showoff, was merely teasing us in hopes of selling more books. He certainly looked in prime shape at the world championships last week in Daegu, South Korea. In the 200 and relay finals, and despite having comfortable leads, Bolt sprinted flat-out all the way to the line ― unlike when winning the 100 gold at the 2008 Beijing Olympics, where he slowed, showboated and earned a ticking-off from IOC president Jacques Rogge.
But if Bolt is being truthful about not fully exploiting his talents, then that means he is shortchanging us and the sport that made him a global icon.
With less partying and more dedication, could Bolt whittle more hundredths off his marks of 9.58 in the 100 and 19.19 in the 200, so the records would endure into the 22nd century?
Bolt says he’s working on becoming a legend. It can be argued he already is one. But just how legendary depends on how much harder Bolt is prepared to work.
He has the chance to stake a claim as the greatest athlete ever with more records and golds at the 2012 London Olympics, but not if he leaves the sport and fans wondering “if only ...”
“You have to change your lifestyle if you want to be great. There’s extra sacrifices you have to make,” says Maurice Greene, who won the 100 at the 2000 Sydney Games and set a world mark of 9.79 in 1999 after hiring a nutritionist to improve his diet.
“He’s great now, so just imagine if he just stopped the partying,” Greene says of Bolt. “who knows, maybe that one thing will make him be just a little bit better.”
Which isn’t to say that the Honorable Usain St. Leo Bolt (the Jamaican government awarded him the “honorable” title in 2009) should become bland and boring like so many other sports stars with cardboard personalities.
His ticket-selling showmanship is a big part of why he can command fees of $300,000 per race. For Bolt, a good time is an evening of dominoes followed by clubbing to Jamaican dance tunes. He says he once raced Hollywood actor Mickey Rourke down a street after partying in London. He borrowed his post-retirement dream of owning a rotating bed from a Snoop Dog music video. He can be absent-minded, briefly misplacing his Olympic medals while in New York and losing the phone numbers of football stars he’s rubbed shoulders with, and has long had an impish sense of fun ― as a kid, he delighted in flicking the ears of his sports teacher and running off.
It may be that Bolt wouldn’t run as fast if he was uptight. In Daegu, there were suspicions the false start that disqualified him from the 100 final was in part due to anxiety that he needed a quick getaway to hold off eventual winner Yohan Blake.
“I’ve always thought, even when I was competing, (that) the people who false-started showed me that they were the ones who weren’t ready,” said former Olympic champion hurdler Allen Johnson. “Bolt is by far the fastest man ever, but I think ... he showed all of us that he wasn’t in top form. He wasn’t ready.”
Which isn’t what one wants to hear about such a unique talent.
In his book, Bolt says he works when he needs to: “Everything goes on hold, even parties.” Those in his entourage say he takes better care of himself now. Bolt says that in Beijing in 2008, he ate only chicken nuggets ― 15 at each sitting, breakfast, lunch and dinner, hardly the diet of champions. Now, he often has a Jamaican chef and, according to his agent, Ricky Simms, succumbed to nuggets only occasionally in Daegu.
“I think people are concerned that as he’s getting older, if he parties the way he did at 21 when he was 26, your body won’t be able to hold up. I think that’s a concern. He knows that,” said Bolt’s manager, Norman Peart.
“It happens with the celebrities. People see you at a party two times in a night, they say you’re there for the week,” Peart added. “The good thing (is) that we know that he knows what to do.”
Let’s hope so.
We all know that Bolt is the best. But what we want to be sure of is that we see the best of Bolt.
(AP)