by Usain Bolt
Sometimes people will accuse me of ignoring them, which puzzles me. They will say I’m getting all hyped up and ask why I don’t talk to them. My reply is simply that I don’t know them. Think about it: do you talk to everyone you see? How strange would it be if you did?
I’m not complaining, I’m just explaining how it is. Never as a kid did I think about being famous, but I’ve become one of the most recognisable faces in the world and you have to enjoy it.
You can have fun with it. When I go shopping in a store in the States or Europe and the assistant behind the counter says, “You look like Usain Bolt,” I’ll reply, “Yeah, I’ve heard that before.” Then they’ll go, “You know, that guy who’s the runner, the fast one,” and I’ll say, “Yeah, I know, but would he be out shopping in this store?” Then they’ll say, “Yeah, you’re right, it couldn’t be.” It cracks me up every time. You cannot trick kids, though. The moment they say “You’re Usain Bolt” they’ve got me no matter how much I pretend I’m not. They’ll just go, “Yes, yes, you are,” and you’ll hear this big scream of “Muuuuum! It’s Usain Bolt.”
I live as normal an existence as possible. Meet organizers have had to arrange additional security because of the large numbers of spectators. I can assure you that when I attend any public event in Jamaica, security is there for crowd control. I feel I am loved in Jamaica, but as a celebrity you’re recommended also to have your own personal security in place.
I’m regarded as a role model, which isn’t difficult for me to live up to. I’m just being myself, and don’t have to work at it. It means setting a good example for kids to follow. On school visits I tell them to work hard so they can achieve whatever they want to, and I don’t see my love of the nightlife as a contradiction to that. I’m proving you can get to the top and enjoy life too.
I’m the person I always was – I don’t believe success has changed me. When I go to the track to train, my clubmates treat me the same way they always did, they make jokes and we are comfortable in each other’s company. They don’t think I’m playing the big star, at least I hope not.
I am blessed to be recognized as one of the biggest sports stars, but with this great fame comes even greater scrutiny. I try to live my life as normally as possible, but I am mindful that anything can happen. I follow the news, so I am well aware of what happens with other sporting icons, but I try not to make the same mistakes.
I’M PROVING
YOU CAN GET
TO THE TOP AND
ENJOY LIFE TOO.
I’M THE PERSON
I ALWAYS WAS...
I have pretty much lived an open life, and my love for having fun is well known. Unlike the USA and Europe, in Jamaica you don’t get paparazzi waiting outside nightclubs or your home to get exclusive photos.
I recall being in a club in London after the World Championships. I was pictured leaving with Mickey Rourke, the star of the film The Wrestler. He took his shoes off and challenged me to a race down the street. He must be in his mid-50s, but I went along with it – and by the way I did win. I also met the Formula One champion Lewis Hamilton, and David Haye, the world boxing champ who went on to beat that enormous Russian guy Nikolay Valuev, who is more than 7ft tall. I told him, “You’re stupid, man, if you’re really going to fight that guy,” but he did it. I don’t go out looking for other famous people but I like mixing with them and talking about their lives when the chance crops up. I did the David Letterman chat show in the US after the Olympics, which was my first big interview appearance. I’d seen his shows before and thought I’d be OK. My personality helped me to play along with his jokes.
My fame gives me an opportunity to help those who are less fortunate and assist other charitable agencies. I also help to influence others to do the same.
I have been involved in a number of projects and am currently working on some others. These have included work in the health, education, community development and sports sectors. We’ve been working on refurbishing a health center in my hometown, Sherwood Content, Trelawny. We are also discussing a recreational and play facility for the same community. Meanwhile from time to time I donate gear for a number of sporting teams.
My sponsors, Digicel, the phone company, helped provide my former primary school, Piedmont Basic School, with a new tiled floor. It might not sound much, but when you’ve been used to walking around on concrete, it feels a lot more comfortable to walk on tiles.
I hope my fame can help me in achieving one of my greatest ambitions, which is to acquire piped water for my community. The water supply now comes from collecting rain in huge tanks. That works fine, unless it stops raining for a while, in which case water has to be brought in by tanker, which takes a few days. My contribution helps to ensure that the computer lab and the instructor’s fees are covered. To me technology is one of the most important subjects for kids.
Not everything I’ve been involved in has been confined to Jamaica. In January 2010 Haiti suffered its terrible earthquake, which killed almost 250,000 people. Haiti is only about 300 miles from us and was one of the poorest countries to live in before the ‘quake, never mind afterwards. We sent them cases of water and clothes, and I feel there is an obligation on people like me to help out countries hit by natural disasters wherever they are in the world.
I am now a part of the tradition in which the Jamaican Government honors the country’s top performing athletes. In 2009 I got the prestigious Order of Jamaica, the fourth highest order, making me Honorable Usain St Leo Bolt. I have followed in the footsteps of numerous other Jamaican athletes who have received national awards dating back to the 1950s. This means I’m an official ambassador of Jamaica with full diplomatic status, and that wherever I am in the world I am representing the country, but then I feel I’ve been doing that anyway as an athlete since the age of 15.
There was some opposition to the award and a feeling that I was too young for the honor. Most people don’t get it until much later in life, Bob Marley received an award after his death. However, I’m proud of it and will use it to help make life better for our people and our sportsmen and women. It gives me easier access to our Prime Minister, and I’m able to raise issues with him which I believe need looking at, such as a better support system for our athletes. I feel track and field have helped to make Jamaica far more popular, and I am sure the rest of the athletes would agree with me.
Jamaica is a popular destination and I was a part of the international media campaign for the Jamaica Tourist Board, which gave me an opportunity to know my countryside. Jamaica has also become a popular destination for photo shoots and commercials, and in early 2010 I did a few in Jamaica. I feel it is very important to promote the island, and I enjoy doing my bit to bring more visitors to the island, create more jobs and boost the Jamaican economy.
We became best friends at the age of six. We always thought it was funny, since he was known as VJ and I was NJ. We were both good at math and most of the girls in school were brilliant at English. There was always a math versus English challenge going on about who could get the best marks in their favorite subjects.
I’m from a village called Reserve and had to go past Usain’s house to get to school. I’d sit outside and wait for him, and we would walk to Waldensia Primary School together. When we went to William Knibb it was the other way around and he’d come by my house in the local taxi and pick me up.
When we were younger I never thought of him as just a runner, he was good at all sports, particularly cricket. We opened the batting together in the last year of primary school, but he’d been scoring more runs and taking more wickets than me. He was with the team for four years. Usain was an outstanding cricketer from then, making the school team, way before the average player, who would start at grade five. I was on the squad in grade four, but didn’t play a match. Usain had been playing matches from grade three, that was how outstanding he was. I don’t think that has ever happened at Waldensia since then.
Sports day was a major acti
vity at the school. Usain was always competing in many events. We were in different houses. My team wore yellow and his wore blue. The only win I can boast about was beating him in a math race. Outside of that he was always the dominant athlete. Usain has always had a strong passion for competing. I remember he once slipped at sports day and cried because he lost. He didn’t lose again.
In his first two years at high school he didn’t take his running seriously. Kids would be out there training every day, but he would turn up for the race, have a little jog, then go out and win. He’d go off to the games room in Falmouth rather than train, but I didn’t go with him, I was concentrating on my school work. He wouldn’t even tell me he was going to play video games, because he knew I was the more disciplined one, who would tell him, “You should be going to training. ”
Although Usain would win at school sports and parish level, he got whipped at the Regional level in the first two seasons by Keith Spence. By the third season, VJ realized that some amount of discipline was required and he took it more seriously thereafter. He beat Spence the following year at the Regional Championships and made himself a contender at the national level.
Usain and I would watch numerous sports together and we would strategize about winning. One example was when he was to compete against the defending 400m champion, Jermaine Gonzales. I recall it like just yesterday, sitting in the school library strategizing about how we would conquer a previous champion.
In our analysis we knew Usain had great 200 meters speed, and felt it prudent to exploit this ability of his. We decided Usain should run the first 200 meters really fast, to make Jermaine panic and take him out of his rhythm. He would try to catch him and overstretch himself Turns out he did not even complete the race Usain and I thought the strategy worked. Jermaine, who is now our very good friend, has gone out of his way to persuade us he had an injury before that race. However, I think it needed more than that to convince us . We feel our strategy worked.
Usain and I still preview his race. The coach may not be happy about this, but we still do it . We are very proud of our record to date.
Usain moved to Kingston before me, but we kept in touch via phone a lot . I came to the city in 2006 to start at Teaching College.
Usain doesn’t try to concentrate on running for records, he runs to win . If records come along too, that’s a bonus. When Usain ran the 100 meters in Kingston in 2008, some bad things were said about his 9.76 seconds. The critics questioned the legitimacy of the time and asked if the clock was working right. We were happy to shut up the doubters when he set the world 100 meters record with his 9.72 seconds in New York before the Olympics. It was like if you set a record in Jamaica it didn’t count, it had to be done in Europe or the States.
The 100 meters continued to be an experience for VJ, and I recall being on the phone with him the night before the 100m semi-final and final in Beijing. We knew Usain had a poor start and that the others would try to exploit that by getting out of the blocks super-quick. Usain said, “NJ, I’ve got this, it’s cool.” He wanted to talk about other stuff away from athletics, but I felt it was important for him to be focused because he wasn’t experienced over the 100 meters and had lost to Asafa Powell in Stockholm in 2008 (before Beijing). At the end of the conversation I had to tell him to go to bed and get some rest. Well, the end result of the 100 meters is there for the world to see.
He’s not a big sleeper. In Berlin they were five hours ahead of me, and when I got in at midnight he’d want to talk on the phone.
We dreamed about winning a gold medal in Beijing but in the 200 meters not the 100. The 200 meters will always be the bigger one for Usain, I feel, and to beat Michael Johnson’s 19.32 in Beijing was the best feeling. Everyone thought that couldn’t be broken . People felt 19 .4 was the best Usain could ever do . Now, if he ran 19 seconds flat, I wouldn’t be shocked.
I was working in a hotel in Maine, USA, on an overseas program when the Olympics was on and sneaked into one of the rooms to watch the 100m final. There’s not many blacks in Maine, so I stood out a bit as I jumped up and down on the bed. I am sure you can imagine my manager wasn’t pleased, and nobody believed Usain was my best friend.
In many ways we’re so different. Usain is calm, I’m more aggressive. If there’s something wrong I want to deal with it immediately, whereas tomorrow will do for him or even the next day. I’m not the party type that he is either I’ll go out sometimes.
I am like his right-hand man, there to make life easier for him so that he can concentrate on his sprinting While he’s off running, I make sure all his business is taken care of Before he signs anything he makes sure I’ve seen it and gone through it You can now imagine the pressure I am under to ensure that he doesn’t sign away his life. I’m happy to be able to share his life with him and, though it’s now my job, I’ve always helped him.
We both love watching sports and support Manchester United, but internationally he goes for Argentina and I’m Brazil. In basketball he backs the Boston Celtics and I’m a Lakers man. I started liking United as Dwight Yorke, who comes from Trinidad and Tobago, played for them, while Usain followed them because he thought Ruud van Nistelrooy was a great goalscorer.
We can’t miss a United game on the TV Once we were in Miami when United lost to Everton and it spoiled the entire day, there was so much cussing done about that result.
Usain admires great sportsmen and women. I tell him he’s a legend and a bigger star than all of them, but I don’t think he believes it. Sometimes it’s hard to get him to realize what a superstar he is To have a stadium full of 90,000 people singing “Happy birthday to you”, as happened to him in Beijing, he’s got to be special.
Everything we ever wanted for Usain is coming to him now, after all the hard times. When people were telling him he was too tall to be a sprinter, I was saying it was rubbish When Usain thought he might not be able to run because of his back problems, I told him to be positive. I’d read how the body can have a transitional phase as it grows and could adapt to things like his curved spine. I was convinced he’d get through it and he did. For me he is the greatest sportsman that ever lived.
MY PERFORMANCES SINCE 2007 IN OSAKA, Japan, have sparked a lot of interest across the globe. It has been said that I am the savior of athletics, and that, having proved to be a clean athlete and smashed the world record in the flagship 100 meters, I’ve given the sport its credibility back. Equally I’m well aware that if there was ever any hint of a drug scandal against me it could finish athletics. I can assure you that won’t happen.
I had my first drug test at a track meet in Miami when I was still a few weeks shy of my 17th birthday. Since then I have always had to provide information of my whereabouts each day, so that I’m available for random drug testing at any time.
My attitude towards drugs has always been to stay away from them, whether they be performance enhancing or recreational. In fact I don’t even like to take the required supplements, because of my fear that one of them might show up on the banned list. I tried a cigarette when I was 13 years old, but I’ve never touched one since.
The only supplements I bother with are vitamins, which I’ve been taking since my teenage years – at least I know they’re safe. I won’t even risk a cold medicine. I prefer an old Jamaican remedy of honey and lime juice, which always puts me right. Someone should market that, it really does the trick.
However careful I am, and however many times I’m tested – and I’ve probably been tested more than any other sportsman on the planet since breaking the 100m world record – that is still not enough to satisfy some people, who have doubted my performances.
I am fully aware of all the comments from in and out of the athletics arena, but I am committed to my responsibility as the fastest man on the planet.
Any athlete in the top 20 in the world is subject to random testing from the sport’s governing body, and with so many Jamaicans ranked at that level, they are continually being tested, not just by th
e IAAF but WADA too.
Before the Olympics I was tested four times in a week. I’m tested after every race, and every day I have to tell the authorities where I’m going to be in case they want to do a test. They turn up unannounced at any time of day or night. Even while I was putting together this book, they knocked on my door at 6.30 a.m. to do a drug test. You can’t say, “Go away and come back later”; you have to produce a sample when they ask you, and if you can’t they will stay there till you do. A missed test is a failed test. Those are the very strict rules which govern the sport.
I’M TESTED AFTER
EVERY RACE,
AND EVERY DAY
I HAVE TO TELL
THE AUTHORITIES
WHERE I’M GOING
TO BE IN CASE
THEY WANT TO
DO A TEST.
Athletics has been under a cloud because of recent revelations from past champions. As a result, whenever anyone breaks a world record, one of the first questions seems to be, “Do you think they are on something?”It takes a while afterwards, maybe two years of being tested and tested, before the world is convinced you’re clean.
While the amount of testing I’m subjected to can be inconvenient, I’ve no problem with it – you get used to it. In fact I’m all for more testing. The testers can form a queue outside my house if they want to, because the more often they test me and other athletes and show that we are clean, the better it is for the sport. It’s those who fail tests who make the others look bad. It leads to criticisms of athletics as a whole, and it is hard to turn that feeling around. So I thoroughly support the work of IAAF and WADA to monitor athletes’ performances through drug testing.
