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With style and speed, Lightning Bolt hits Olympics
By EDDIE PELLS, AP National Writer Aug 24, 10:18 am EDT
And he might just have revived a sport bogged down by doping and bad characters in the process.
Whether it’s a long-term fix or a temporary boost, we’ll find out. But one thing is certain: He put on some kind of show at the Bird’s Nest.
It wasn’t only the mind-boggling times and the gold medals and the three world records. It was the way he did it. No brooding, no nasty trash talk. He was a chest-slapping, finger-pointing, camera-loving dance machine who wore a smile as bright as his medals.
The 10-day track and field meet quickly got caught up in that infectious good time, with athletes from all corners of the world soaking up the vibe, even imitating the 6-foot-5 Jamaican. Not even Michael Phelps can claim that.
“He has been the most entertaining athlete of these games,” said Ato Boldon, a 2000 silver medalist who does color commentary for NBC and knows a thing or two about showmanship.
Bolt’s teammates gave him credit for inspiring them to the best Olympic showing in that small country’s history—six gold medals, five in the sprints.
American champion LaShawn Merritt said he mimicked Bolt’s style to run free and easy in his upset of Jeremy Wariner in the 400.
British high jumper Germaine Mason won a surprise silver medal and said, “I feel like Usain Bolt when he won his gold.”
Estonian Gerd Kanter caught the fever after his discus gold medal, lumbering down the same stretch of track that Bolt ran in his own “sprint,” carrying his nation’s flag overhead and then pointing with two fingers at the scoreboard— the way Bolt does.
Even Carlos Cordero, a Mexican who finished 32nd in Sunday’s marathon under clear blue skies, knelt after the finish line and struck Bolt’s famous two-fingered-pointing pose.
A fitting finish to a track meet that was taken over by a 22-year-old Jamaican who is redefining possibilities in his sport, not least because men so big aren’t supposed to be able to run so fast over 100 meters.
While Phelps and his quest for eight gold medals was the story heading into the Olympics, Bolt exploded in the middle, hotdogging in the 100 (9.69 seconds), driving hard to the finish in the 200 (19.30), then grabbing the lead and handing off to teammate Asafa Powell in the 400 relay (37.10).
All world records.
All enough to make many forget about what the biggest stories of the track meet were supposed to be coming in:
— Liu Xiang: The Chinese hurdler—the defending Olympic champion and national celebrity—never finished a single race due to injury. He was supposed to challenge for gold Thursday night. Instead, the headline that night was Bolt’s second of two world records and his quest for a third in the 400 relay.
— Bolt vs. Powell vs. Tyson Gay in the 100: Never happened. Gay, clearly not recovered from his pre-Olympics hamstring injury, didn’t even make it out of the semifinals. Powell finished fifth, not that anyone noticed. Everyone was watching Bolt smack his chest before he even crossed the finish line, 0.2 second ahead of second-place finisher Richard Thompson.
— American dominance: The U.S. team is so good that even when it performs below expectations, it’s hard to know what that means. The men won four gold medals, an all-time low. Gay and Bernard Lagat were among the several defending world champions who didn’t win a medal. But the 23 overall medals were more than respectable and five more than second-place Russia, even if they fell short of the total four years ago. Had the U.S. 400 relay teams not dropped the batons in both preliminaries, these Olympics might have been viewed as a success, despite a lack of gold in the men’s or women’s 100 and 200.
— Pollution and weather: Both marathons were run under clear skies. The weather was a bit muggy at times but fine overall. Nobody was seen wearing masks. Very few complained about the conditions.
— Doping: Lyudmila Blonska had her heptathlon silver stripped because of a positive doping test, but that was as bad as it got. No motorcycle chases through Athens. No teary news conferences involving Marion Jones and C.J. Hunter. Many people are still waiting for the second part of the Bolt story to be told—could he be this good without artificial help?—but he’ll leave Beijing having passed at least four tests.
And with three gold medals in hand and three world records in the books.
“What I think almost amuses us is why some people in the world don’t feel that others can be that good,” said Mike Fennell, president of the Jamaican Olympic Association. “We have some marvelous talent here and wouldn’t want anybody to suggest at all that this is not pure, raw talent that has been properly trained and properly coached and properly presented and reaping the rewards of all that hard work.”
American Sanya Richards works as hard as anyone, but it didn’t get her the medal she wanted. She settled for bronze in the 400 when gold was in her grasp, and figured out too late what might have been missing.
“I want to go back to having fun,” said Richards, who grew up in Jamaica. “I’m going to go back to my roots, watch some tapes of when I ran in Jamaica— when I used to run and there was no strategy. When I just had fun.”
Just like Usain?
“Like Usain,” she said. “He’s out here dancing the Jamaican moves that we used to do. It’s exciting to watch.”
And it is, it appears, all natural.
Bolt insists it was hard work and nothing else that transformed him from an Olympian to The Olympian over the final week in Beijing.
He stepped up the training, stayed off the dance floor he loves so much.
Turns out, he got to dance plenty at this party.
There figures to be more—and maybe he’ll take the whole sport along with him.
“It’s going to change my life, but I won’t change so much,” Bolt said. “I’ll be the same person. I’ll still enjoy myself. I’m still young. I’ll still train hard and just work hard to stay on top, because I’m on top now and I want to try to stay there as long as I can.”
AP Sports Writer Howard Fendrich in Beijing contributed to this report.
By EDDIE PELLS, AP National Writer Aug 24, 10:18 am EDT
- Buzz Up
And he might just have revived a sport bogged down by doping and bad characters in the process.
Whether it’s a long-term fix or a temporary boost, we’ll find out. But one thing is certain: He put on some kind of show at the Bird’s Nest.
It wasn’t only the mind-boggling times and the gold medals and the three world records. It was the way he did it. No brooding, no nasty trash talk. He was a chest-slapping, finger-pointing, camera-loving dance machine who wore a smile as bright as his medals.
The 10-day track and field meet quickly got caught up in that infectious good time, with athletes from all corners of the world soaking up the vibe, even imitating the 6-foot-5 Jamaican. Not even Michael Phelps can claim that.
“He has been the most entertaining athlete of these games,” said Ato Boldon, a 2000 silver medalist who does color commentary for NBC and knows a thing or two about showmanship.
Bolt’s teammates gave him credit for inspiring them to the best Olympic showing in that small country’s history—six gold medals, five in the sprints.
American champion LaShawn Merritt said he mimicked Bolt’s style to run free and easy in his upset of Jeremy Wariner in the 400.
British high jumper Germaine Mason won a surprise silver medal and said, “I feel like Usain Bolt when he won his gold.”
Estonian Gerd Kanter caught the fever after his discus gold medal, lumbering down the same stretch of track that Bolt ran in his own “sprint,” carrying his nation’s flag overhead and then pointing with two fingers at the scoreboard— the way Bolt does.
Even Carlos Cordero, a Mexican who finished 32nd in Sunday’s marathon under clear blue skies, knelt after the finish line and struck Bolt’s famous two-fingered-pointing pose.
A fitting finish to a track meet that was taken over by a 22-year-old Jamaican who is redefining possibilities in his sport, not least because men so big aren’t supposed to be able to run so fast over 100 meters.
While Phelps and his quest for eight gold medals was the story heading into the Olympics, Bolt exploded in the middle, hotdogging in the 100 (9.69 seconds), driving hard to the finish in the 200 (19.30), then grabbing the lead and handing off to teammate Asafa Powell in the 400 relay (37.10).
All world records.
All enough to make many forget about what the biggest stories of the track meet were supposed to be coming in:
— Liu Xiang: The Chinese hurdler—the defending Olympic champion and national celebrity—never finished a single race due to injury. He was supposed to challenge for gold Thursday night. Instead, the headline that night was Bolt’s second of two world records and his quest for a third in the 400 relay.
— Bolt vs. Powell vs. Tyson Gay in the 100: Never happened. Gay, clearly not recovered from his pre-Olympics hamstring injury, didn’t even make it out of the semifinals. Powell finished fifth, not that anyone noticed. Everyone was watching Bolt smack his chest before he even crossed the finish line, 0.2 second ahead of second-place finisher Richard Thompson.
— American dominance: The U.S. team is so good that even when it performs below expectations, it’s hard to know what that means. The men won four gold medals, an all-time low. Gay and Bernard Lagat were among the several defending world champions who didn’t win a medal. But the 23 overall medals were more than respectable and five more than second-place Russia, even if they fell short of the total four years ago. Had the U.S. 400 relay teams not dropped the batons in both preliminaries, these Olympics might have been viewed as a success, despite a lack of gold in the men’s or women’s 100 and 200.
— Pollution and weather: Both marathons were run under clear skies. The weather was a bit muggy at times but fine overall. Nobody was seen wearing masks. Very few complained about the conditions.
— Doping: Lyudmila Blonska had her heptathlon silver stripped because of a positive doping test, but that was as bad as it got. No motorcycle chases through Athens. No teary news conferences involving Marion Jones and C.J. Hunter. Many people are still waiting for the second part of the Bolt story to be told—could he be this good without artificial help?—but he’ll leave Beijing having passed at least four tests.
And with three gold medals in hand and three world records in the books.
“What I think almost amuses us is why some people in the world don’t feel that others can be that good,” said Mike Fennell, president of the Jamaican Olympic Association. “We have some marvelous talent here and wouldn’t want anybody to suggest at all that this is not pure, raw talent that has been properly trained and properly coached and properly presented and reaping the rewards of all that hard work.”
American Sanya Richards works as hard as anyone, but it didn’t get her the medal she wanted. She settled for bronze in the 400 when gold was in her grasp, and figured out too late what might have been missing.
“I want to go back to having fun,” said Richards, who grew up in Jamaica. “I’m going to go back to my roots, watch some tapes of when I ran in Jamaica— when I used to run and there was no strategy. When I just had fun.”
Just like Usain?
“Like Usain,” she said. “He’s out here dancing the Jamaican moves that we used to do. It’s exciting to watch.”
And it is, it appears, all natural.
Bolt insists it was hard work and nothing else that transformed him from an Olympian to The Olympian over the final week in Beijing.
He stepped up the training, stayed off the dance floor he loves so much.
Turns out, he got to dance plenty at this party.
There figures to be more—and maybe he’ll take the whole sport along with him.
“It’s going to change my life, but I won’t change so much,” Bolt said. “I’ll be the same person. I’ll still enjoy myself. I’m still young. I’ll still train hard and just work hard to stay on top, because I’m on top now and I want to try to stay there as long as I can.”
AP Sports Writer Howard Fendrich in Beijing contributed to this report.