The Usain Bolt Gear
August 11, 2012
Tyson Gay has beaten me in a hundred-meter dash, so has Asafa Powell, and Yohan Blake recently outran me in both the hundred and two hundred at our Olympic trials in Jamaica. Those three are the swiftest in history, after me, and may be thinking, or at least hoping, that while I used to be a six-foot-five destroyer of world sprint records I now retain only my height.
I confess I’ve been a bit less confident since Yohan Blake embarrassed me on our island of champion sprinters. Quite a few people ribbed me and some in the media crafted my Olympic obituary. Previously unconsidered questions also began troubling me. Have I been training as diligently as I once did or has celebrity eroded some of my discipline? Do I still care as much? Am I as hungry as those who yearn to take my crown as fastest man on earth?
I answered the questions honestly, adjusted accordingly, focused on London, and today know I’m ready for the fastest field ever. I’m not worried I’m one of the last out of the blocks. I’m not far behind. I’m unlimbering. Half way through I’m almost even with the leaders, and accelerating long and strong and fast, like none of them can, like no one ever has, a supernatural man flying through the tape in 9.63 seconds, a time, let us concede, no one but I comprehend.
A few days later, in the two hundred, I’m rather surprised, as an oft-slow starter, to be blasting the field from the gun all the way around the turn and, rather than an urgency-driven rush straight home, I’m running for history, caressing the moment, slowing a bit, allowing Blake to get a little closer before I ease across the line in 19.32 and become the only man to finish first in both sprints two straight Olympics.