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Bolt, Track’s Biggest Star, Looks to Revitalize Sport
Karen Fuchs
Usain Bolt, whose speed and theatricality have inspired young Jamaicans, has bodyguards to control overzealous fans
By JERÉ LONGMAN
Published: April 11, 2009
KINGSTON, Jamaica — As the world’s fastest man, Usain Bolt has earned an honored place on the veranda of his aunt’s house and bar in their remote hometown, Sherwood Content. Several posters of Bolt flank a photograph of Nelson Mandela, a clock embossed with the Lord’s Prayer and a plaque featuring Big Mouth Billy, the novelty singing bass.
Karen Fuchs
Bolt’s coaches say he is not finished improving his sprint times. “My main goal is to be a legend in my sport,” Bolt, 22, said.
“She always makes me laugh,” Bolt said of his aunt.
It was a similar melding of the iconic and the playful that Bolt used to stun and charm 90,000 Olympic spectators in Beijing and a worldwide television audience last summer. While collecting three gold medals and three world records, he enjoyed himself immensely, pantomiming an archer drawing his bow and celebrating on the track with a dance called the Gully Creeper.
And now Bolt is hoping that his good-humored personality can be as transcendent as his speed, which produced records in Beijing of 9.69 seconds at 100 meters, 19.30 at 200 and 37.10 in the 4x100 relay.
Not only does Bolt want to revitalize track, a sport experiencing international decline, and redefine the limits of speed, but by the 2012 Summer Games in London, or soon after, he wants to become the first track star to earn $10 million a year in prize money, appearance fees and endorsements.
“David Beckham, Tiger Woods, he’s got to look at that being his target,”
Ricky Simms, Bolt’s London-based agent, said, speaking more in terms of wide marketability than income. Track stars do not earn as much as top stars in more visible professional sports. Woods, for example, earns an estimated $100 million a year. A handful of top track stars, like Carl Lewis, Michael Johnson, Marion Jones and Maurice Greene, probably earned $5 million to $7 million at the peak of their careers.
Because Bolt is only 22, he has a chance to participate in three Olympics. To become a surpassing figure, he will surely have to continue to win and set records, while avoiding injury and complacency and remaining free of the taint of doping.
In this post-Olympic year, with the world track and field championships to be held in August in Berlin, Bolt is the sport’s only megawatt drawing power. As such, agents and meet promoters said, he will command appearance fees of up to $200,000 for races, double what other top stars earn.
His shoe contract with Puma is worth about $1.5 million a year, company officials said. He also has endorsements for Gatorade and Digicel, a Caribbean mobile phone company, which could put Bolt’s 2009 income above $3 million.
But Bolt is from Jamaica, not the United States, where many Olympic sponsors have their headquarters. And he also came into greatness on the precipice of a worldwide recession. It remains to be seen whether he will ever realize his $10 million vision of licensing his image for video games, action figures and cereal boxes.
“I hope the guy can get it, but it’s going to be a tough nut to crack,” said Emanuel K. Hudson, a Los Angeles lawyer and agent for Greene, the 2000 Olympic champion in the 100.
In an interview last Monday with international reporters, Bolt spoke candidly about his ambitions and the challenges of rekindling his motivation after such startling performances in Beijing.
Bolt has decided that his drive would be to continue pushing the edge of human performance. His coaches speak of him potentially running the 100 in 9.5, breaking 19 seconds in the 200 and challenging the 400 world record of 43.18, held by Johnson, Bolt’s idol.
“My main goal is to be a legend in my sport,” Bolt, who is 6 feet 5 inches, said. “You have to stay on top every year. You can’t be fast this season and the next two not be there.”
Appearances for his sponsors, post-Olympic celebrating and other distractions put Bolt behind in his early-season training, he acknowledged. He started poorly in his opening 100 last month in Spanish Town, Jamaica. Only a searing finish allowed him to match the wind-aided 9.93 run by a training partner, Daniel Bailey of Antigua.
“I didn’t feel like myself,” Bolt said.
He went home infuriated, said Norman Peart, Bolt’s manager. “It was a wake-up call,” Peart said, adding that in recent weeks Bolt had become more intent on training.
On Monday, during a relatively easy workout, Bolt ran six repeats of 180 meters from 19.6 to 20.6 seconds, and appeared relaxed and confident.
In noting that his countryman Asafa Powell, the former world-record holder in the 100, tended to “freak out” under pressure at major competitions, Bolt said he bided his time before races by playing video games and dominoes and by adopting this approach: “If I’m the fastest man in the world, you’re not going to beat me.”
On and off the track, Bolt understands that he will now come under far greater scrutiny. Michael Phelps, the American swimmer who won eight gold medals in Beijing, learned this when he was photographed at a party with a marijuana pipe. The result was a three-month suspension and the loss of a commercial deal with Kellogg.
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Karen FuchsUsain Bolt, whose speed and theatricality have inspired young Jamaicans, has bodyguards to control overzealous fans
By JERÉ LONGMAN
Published: April 11, 2009
KINGSTON, Jamaica — As the world’s fastest man, Usain Bolt has earned an honored place on the veranda of his aunt’s house and bar in their remote hometown, Sherwood Content. Several posters of Bolt flank a photograph of Nelson Mandela, a clock embossed with the Lord’s Prayer and a plaque featuring Big Mouth Billy, the novelty singing bass.
Karen Fuchs
Bolt’s coaches say he is not finished improving his sprint times. “My main goal is to be a legend in my sport,” Bolt, 22, said.
“She always makes me laugh,” Bolt said of his aunt.
It was a similar melding of the iconic and the playful that Bolt used to stun and charm 90,000 Olympic spectators in Beijing and a worldwide television audience last summer. While collecting three gold medals and three world records, he enjoyed himself immensely, pantomiming an archer drawing his bow and celebrating on the track with a dance called the Gully Creeper.
And now Bolt is hoping that his good-humored personality can be as transcendent as his speed, which produced records in Beijing of 9.69 seconds at 100 meters, 19.30 at 200 and 37.10 in the 4x100 relay.
Not only does Bolt want to revitalize track, a sport experiencing international decline, and redefine the limits of speed, but by the 2012 Summer Games in London, or soon after, he wants to become the first track star to earn $10 million a year in prize money, appearance fees and endorsements.
“David Beckham, Tiger Woods, he’s got to look at that being his target,”
Ricky Simms, Bolt’s London-based agent, said, speaking more in terms of wide marketability than income. Track stars do not earn as much as top stars in more visible professional sports. Woods, for example, earns an estimated $100 million a year. A handful of top track stars, like Carl Lewis, Michael Johnson, Marion Jones and Maurice Greene, probably earned $5 million to $7 million at the peak of their careers.
Because Bolt is only 22, he has a chance to participate in three Olympics. To become a surpassing figure, he will surely have to continue to win and set records, while avoiding injury and complacency and remaining free of the taint of doping.
In this post-Olympic year, with the world track and field championships to be held in August in Berlin, Bolt is the sport’s only megawatt drawing power. As such, agents and meet promoters said, he will command appearance fees of up to $200,000 for races, double what other top stars earn.
His shoe contract with Puma is worth about $1.5 million a year, company officials said. He also has endorsements for Gatorade and Digicel, a Caribbean mobile phone company, which could put Bolt’s 2009 income above $3 million.
But Bolt is from Jamaica, not the United States, where many Olympic sponsors have their headquarters. And he also came into greatness on the precipice of a worldwide recession. It remains to be seen whether he will ever realize his $10 million vision of licensing his image for video games, action figures and cereal boxes.
“I hope the guy can get it, but it’s going to be a tough nut to crack,” said Emanuel K. Hudson, a Los Angeles lawyer and agent for Greene, the 2000 Olympic champion in the 100.
In an interview last Monday with international reporters, Bolt spoke candidly about his ambitions and the challenges of rekindling his motivation after such startling performances in Beijing.
Bolt has decided that his drive would be to continue pushing the edge of human performance. His coaches speak of him potentially running the 100 in 9.5, breaking 19 seconds in the 200 and challenging the 400 world record of 43.18, held by Johnson, Bolt’s idol.
“My main goal is to be a legend in my sport,” Bolt, who is 6 feet 5 inches, said. “You have to stay on top every year. You can’t be fast this season and the next two not be there.”
Appearances for his sponsors, post-Olympic celebrating and other distractions put Bolt behind in his early-season training, he acknowledged. He started poorly in his opening 100 last month in Spanish Town, Jamaica. Only a searing finish allowed him to match the wind-aided 9.93 run by a training partner, Daniel Bailey of Antigua.
“I didn’t feel like myself,” Bolt said.
He went home infuriated, said Norman Peart, Bolt’s manager. “It was a wake-up call,” Peart said, adding that in recent weeks Bolt had become more intent on training.
On Monday, during a relatively easy workout, Bolt ran six repeats of 180 meters from 19.6 to 20.6 seconds, and appeared relaxed and confident.
In noting that his countryman Asafa Powell, the former world-record holder in the 100, tended to “freak out” under pressure at major competitions, Bolt said he bided his time before races by playing video games and dominoes and by adopting this approach: “If I’m the fastest man in the world, you’re not going to beat me.”
On and off the track, Bolt understands that he will now come under far greater scrutiny. Michael Phelps, the American swimmer who won eight gold medals in Beijing, learned this when he was photographed at a party with a marijuana pipe. The result was a three-month suspension and the loss of a commercial deal with Kellogg.
- A version of this article appeared in print on April 12, 2009, on page SP1 of the New York edition.
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Paul Marin -19 is one thing, 20 is a whole other matter. It gets even worse if they win the UCL. *groan*. 
05/18/2011.MU fans naah cough, but all a unuh a vomit?-Lazie 1/11/2015
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