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Borrowed from Jamaicawin.com
This Bolt runs like no one before him
August 18, 2008 Track & Field - NEWS
Courtesy of “Philadelphia Daily News”
BEIJING - Everybody runs.
Not everybody swims.
It's that simple.
You marvel at Michael Phelps, Mr. Olympics 2008, Mr. Olympics for all time.
You identify with Usain Bolt, the Fastest Man Ever.
Phelps, an American, obliterated records in five solo swims here. His eight gold medals, a probability achieved, made him a safe and simple face with which to brand these Games, the new Mark Spitz. His 14 career golds vaporized the old mark by five.
But not everybody swims. Certainly, not everybody swims well, and virtually nobody swims more than one stroke, maybe two.
But everybody runs.
Bolt, a Jamaican, on Saturday morning ran the most significant race in Olympic history.
He lowered the 100-meter world record he unexpectedly set in May by 0.03 seconds.
Everybody has run. You start when you're about a year old. Eventually, everybody runs 100 yards or meters: in gym class, training for some sport, from parents or the boogeyman.
In some race, everybody has been Bolt, too.
He was so much faster than the field that he slowed up for the last 10 strides.
That's like racing your little brother, and he's huffing and puffing his lungs out as you're chuckling, slowing down as you pass the maple in the backyard.
Everybody has been Asafa Powell, too: Faster than everybody, then, suddenly, outclassed, wondering why you're running in sand and that guy's running on the wind.
Tyson Gay had to know this was coming. America's best hope, Gay bafflingly failed to qualify in the semifinal.
He said his hamstring, injured at the trials in July, was fully healed. He said that the setback, logically, kept him from peaking here. But an also-ran, a fifth place in a semifinal heat? Maybe Gay wanted to avoid embarrassment.
Powell did not. He finished fifth in the final.
This was supposed to be a showdown among the three of them - Gay, Powell and Bolt. Gay blew out his hamstring before he was able to qualify for the 200, Bolt's specialty, so he won't face Bolt this week.
That's just as well.
Understand: Bolt is not Michael Phelps.
Phelps' combination of speed, versatility, endurance, focus has never been matched by any Olympian in any discipline. Likely, it never will.
It is impossible to compare the pair, really. There is no Olympic race for running backward, or sideways, but there are four ways to swim. There is one way to run.
Everybody runs.
A wonder of Bolt's running vs. Phelps' swimming is that Phelps is technically perfect; Bolt, technically indifferent.
Phelps' 6-4 frame and 6-7 wingspan, double-jointed limbs and long, powerful torso make him the perfect swimming machine, as Michael Jordan was perfect for basketball, Satchel Paige ideal as a pitcher.
Bolt's 6-5 frame would appear a hindrance. Gay, for example, is 5-11; Carl Lewis, considered a bit too tall at 6-2.
Joy and power, energy and confidence trumped physics and conventional wisdom.
Before the race, Powell stared into space, stony, perhaps envisioning fifth place. Richard Thompson, the Trinidad and Tobago runner who starred at LSU, hopped like a jumping bean; he finished second. American Walter Dix shook his braids; he was third.
Amid their nerves and nickering, Bolt affected the lighting-bolt pose, laughed and smiled, hopped happily in his new golden Pumas. Bolt knew what was coming.
''I told you all I was going to be No. 1,'' Bolt said, ''and I did just that.''
OK, imagine:
How fast would he have gone if he hadn't dragged his shoe on the start? If he hadn't slowed down? If he hadn't thumped his chest and saluted the crowd over the final five meters? If his left shoe wasn't untied at the end?
Former 200-meter master Michael Johnson, whose record Bolt seeks - that final is Wednesday - said Bolt's marks will never be matched if Bolt runs his races to completion, not to victory.
We'll see.
Bolt's best 200 time, 19.67 seconds run in July in Athens, is 0.35 seconds (an eternity) behind Johnson's 1996 Olympic epic, when Johnson - also in golden shoes - embarrassed the field.
On Saturday, Bolt's run recalled that night in Georgia. Except, on Saturday, as fast as possible didn't matter to Bolt.
He's 21. Immortal. The gold medal mattered. The world record mattered. The gold shoes mattered.
He showed off the shoes, got the medal and the record and left meat on the bone for next time.
When Bolt broke Powell's record in May it made him intriguing. When he arrived to the world on Saturday it made him legendary. What he did, and how he did it, is Johnson in '96, Secretariat in '73.
Not everybody rides, and not everybody swims.
Everybody runs.
But nobody ever ran like that.
This Bolt runs like no one before him
August 18, 2008 Track & Field - NEWS
Courtesy of “Philadelphia Daily News”
BEIJING - Everybody runs.
Not everybody swims.
It's that simple.
You marvel at Michael Phelps, Mr. Olympics 2008, Mr. Olympics for all time.
You identify with Usain Bolt, the Fastest Man Ever.
Phelps, an American, obliterated records in five solo swims here. His eight gold medals, a probability achieved, made him a safe and simple face with which to brand these Games, the new Mark Spitz. His 14 career golds vaporized the old mark by five.
But not everybody swims. Certainly, not everybody swims well, and virtually nobody swims more than one stroke, maybe two.
But everybody runs.
Bolt, a Jamaican, on Saturday morning ran the most significant race in Olympic history.
He lowered the 100-meter world record he unexpectedly set in May by 0.03 seconds.
Everybody has run. You start when you're about a year old. Eventually, everybody runs 100 yards or meters: in gym class, training for some sport, from parents or the boogeyman.
In some race, everybody has been Bolt, too.
He was so much faster than the field that he slowed up for the last 10 strides.
That's like racing your little brother, and he's huffing and puffing his lungs out as you're chuckling, slowing down as you pass the maple in the backyard.
Everybody has been Asafa Powell, too: Faster than everybody, then, suddenly, outclassed, wondering why you're running in sand and that guy's running on the wind.
Tyson Gay had to know this was coming. America's best hope, Gay bafflingly failed to qualify in the semifinal.
He said his hamstring, injured at the trials in July, was fully healed. He said that the setback, logically, kept him from peaking here. But an also-ran, a fifth place in a semifinal heat? Maybe Gay wanted to avoid embarrassment.
Powell did not. He finished fifth in the final.
This was supposed to be a showdown among the three of them - Gay, Powell and Bolt. Gay blew out his hamstring before he was able to qualify for the 200, Bolt's specialty, so he won't face Bolt this week.
That's just as well.
Understand: Bolt is not Michael Phelps.
Phelps' combination of speed, versatility, endurance, focus has never been matched by any Olympian in any discipline. Likely, it never will.
It is impossible to compare the pair, really. There is no Olympic race for running backward, or sideways, but there are four ways to swim. There is one way to run.
Everybody runs.
A wonder of Bolt's running vs. Phelps' swimming is that Phelps is technically perfect; Bolt, technically indifferent.
Phelps' 6-4 frame and 6-7 wingspan, double-jointed limbs and long, powerful torso make him the perfect swimming machine, as Michael Jordan was perfect for basketball, Satchel Paige ideal as a pitcher.
Bolt's 6-5 frame would appear a hindrance. Gay, for example, is 5-11; Carl Lewis, considered a bit too tall at 6-2.
Joy and power, energy and confidence trumped physics and conventional wisdom.
Before the race, Powell stared into space, stony, perhaps envisioning fifth place. Richard Thompson, the Trinidad and Tobago runner who starred at LSU, hopped like a jumping bean; he finished second. American Walter Dix shook his braids; he was third.
Amid their nerves and nickering, Bolt affected the lighting-bolt pose, laughed and smiled, hopped happily in his new golden Pumas. Bolt knew what was coming.
''I told you all I was going to be No. 1,'' Bolt said, ''and I did just that.''
OK, imagine:
How fast would he have gone if he hadn't dragged his shoe on the start? If he hadn't slowed down? If he hadn't thumped his chest and saluted the crowd over the final five meters? If his left shoe wasn't untied at the end?
Former 200-meter master Michael Johnson, whose record Bolt seeks - that final is Wednesday - said Bolt's marks will never be matched if Bolt runs his races to completion, not to victory.
We'll see.
Bolt's best 200 time, 19.67 seconds run in July in Athens, is 0.35 seconds (an eternity) behind Johnson's 1996 Olympic epic, when Johnson - also in golden shoes - embarrassed the field.
On Saturday, Bolt's run recalled that night in Georgia. Except, on Saturday, as fast as possible didn't matter to Bolt.
He's 21. Immortal. The gold medal mattered. The world record mattered. The gold shoes mattered.
He showed off the shoes, got the medal and the record and left meat on the bone for next time.
When Bolt broke Powell's record in May it made him intriguing. When he arrived to the world on Saturday it made him legendary. What he did, and how he did it, is Johnson in '96, Secretariat in '73.
Not everybody rides, and not everybody swims.
Everybody runs.
But nobody ever ran like that.
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