Bolt’s majestic record a mark of his immortality

Nine years ago in Japan’s second largest city, Osaka, I witnessed a Jamaican sprinter blow the field away ahead of the 100m final at the 11th IAAF World Championships.
Asafa Powell had been so dominant at the Nagai stadium that when he lined up against American Tyson Gay, he was favourite for gold.
Gay would later beat Powell – who led for 70 minutes of the race - to win the 100m race in a time of 9.85 before adding the 200m title in his bag for an historic sprint double.
In the aftermath of the race, there was little time to pay attention to a certain 21-year-old kid who had won 200m silver. All the attention was channeled towards Gay’s heroics.
And in any case, the blue-ribbon event of the world championships or Olympics is the 100m. The anticipation for the 200m is usually when the 100m winner is going to take part, which wasn’t the case in Osaka.
Derrick Atkins of the Bahamas had secured 100m silver, a medal which by all accounts should have been Powell’s but for his famed powerlessness to compete under pressure.
The 200m silver went to Usain Bolt. It is a vivid memory in my mind. Being my first IAAF world championships, I remember every race like it was yesterday.

Lanky sprinter
Then, Bolt was a lanky sprinter whose future promised a great deal. The only reason Gay was beating him was because the young Jamaican was still maturing organically. I had interviewed a one Ricky Sims, the agent of Uganda’s 800m athlete at the competition Abraham Chepkirwok, and been impressed. I would later find out he was Bolt’s agent. He still is today.

On Sunday, the Jamaican confirmed his place in the pantheon of sporting greats by becoming the first man in history to win Olympic 100m gold thrice. Bolt today sits alongside Muhammad Ali and Michael Jordan on the pedestal of superstars who transcended their disciplines.

Four years ago in London, his appearance on the stadium screen whenever he warmed up in the training area generated decibel levels so strong they shook the arena. It was pandemonium.
When he made his way to the track, there was a deafening uproar of anticipation – always.
Unlike in Beijing 2008 where he was viewed by most as a sidekick to the Gay-Powell rivalry and a relatively unknown for others, by the 2012 Olympics he had gained mythical status.

In crushing his American opponents to claim all sprint golds in Beijing and later the 2009 IAAF World Championships where he smashed the 100 and 200m, Bolt established himself as the world’s foremost athlete. His time of 9.58 in the 100m was as perfect a race as any you will ever see. Yet former world record holder and Olympic gold medalist Maurice Green saw it differently. “He started looking sideways late on in the race and that slowed him down,” Green reasoned. “He could have done 9.54.” The challenge as often is the case for new champions is the knack to stay at the top.

And only in Daegu, South Korea did Bolt show that he is human after all. With the IAAF’s introduction of a straight red card for a false start, Bolt became the highest profile casualty of the new rule in Korea during the 100m final.

Fastest man
Yohan Blake would win gold but no one outside of Blake’s household, and probably those inside, was convinced he was the fastest man on the planet. Bolt later crushed the field to defend his 200m gold before smashing the 4X100 World Record (WR) with Jamaica in the relays.
A year later his name became entrenched in the annals of the Olympic history when he defended all three sprint golds to become arguably the most accomplished sprinter there ever at the Olympic stadium in Stratford. Throughout the London Games, Bolt was the Olympics and the Olympics was Bolt.

Long jumper Greg Rutherford, heptathlon star Jessica Ennis and long distance runner Mo Farah were Team Great Britain’s poster athletes and all three delivered gold to the delight of the United Kingdom.
But their appeal was nowhere near Bolt’s. In fact Bolt, a Jamaican, was the poster boy of the Games. He always is, anyway.

In between the last Olympics and Rio, athletics and the Olympic movement have been on trial. Doping has reared its ugly head to threaten the integrity of the sport and the very essence of the Olympics.
High profile sprinters Gay and Powell have received suspension for consumption of illegal substances prompting observes to mutely ponder whether Bolt – who is the most tested athlete in history - was clean.
Rio 2016 preparations were hampered by fears of the Zika virus and a number of top sportsmen opted out of the Games.

Defining Olympics

No single man could possibly wipe out doping or make the Rio Games but in Bolt, the world is blessed with the closest individual to the solution.
That explains why most Olympic tourists felt the 2016 Games took off in earnest when Bolt hit the track with all due respect to Michael Phelps and Andy Murray.

Every time Justin Gatlin has been introduced, the booing of his name at the Estadio Olimpico have told the story of how the American will forever be judged, unfairly in my view, as a cheat. In contrast, Bolt is seen as the redeemer of athletics. He is the ultimate showman whose antics are loved and cherished world over.
“Immortal is how I want to be remembered,” he told an extremely packed press conference on Sunday.
Superlatives describing Bolt have been exhausted. There is hardly anymore to be said of a man who has competed against himself for the best part of his career.

As I took my seat for Sunday’s final, I recalled the 2007 Osaka world championships when I first saw Bolt.
His rivals at the time, Gay and Powell, are nowhere today. And that is in part because of Bolt.
Sunday’s 100m final bore resemblance of the Gay-Powell final; Gatlin led for 70 metres before he was left in the shadow of a superhuman force.

Bolt can as well put a bolt on his career. There is nothing left to achieve.
He says he will talk with his coach Glen Mills and agent Simms to decide the next course of action. He has been loyal to the fair all his career.
On a night South Africa’s Wayde Van Niekerk obliterated Michael Johnson’s 17-year world record, the headline maker was Bolt; a phenomenon like no other.