Faster than Lightning

by Usain Bolt

  Still, no joking could distract me from the sensory overload of an Olympic final. Wow, when I got out on the track the crowd were cheering, flashbulbs popped. The noise was deafening. I suddenly understood how a performer like Jay-Z must have felt whenever he walked into a stacked arena. The Bird’s Nest Stadium rocked, the bleachers were rammed and I could tell from experience that the sound and the colours were exactly what I needed to spark me off even more. The crowd’s buzz was like a powerful energy drink to me, and I soaked up every last drop of it.

  Not everyone felt the same way, though. Asafa didn’t look good at all and I could tell by his eyes that he was feeling nervous. The tension was eating him up inside and that got me worried. My first thought was to help him out, because that’s how I rolled – he was a fellow countryman, so I wanted him to relax and be at his best, though I know a lot of athletes wouldn’t have shown that much concern for an Olympic rival.

  I was different. I had love for Asafa, I respected the guy so much. Everything he had done for track and field at home was a gift to me, and he had set a big standard for Jamaica’s athletic elite to follow. Without his world records, athletes like myself wouldn’t have aimed so high. For the last few years we’d attempted to live up to his speeds, to run even faster than he had, though I was the only one who had made it. I knew that without Asafa’s times, the world’s fastest 100 would still have been 9.79 seconds.

  I also understood the stress that he was going through, the national pressure as a Jamaican, because at home they loved Asafa, definitely more than they loved me. He was their golden boy. They were desperate for him to come home with a major medal because he was such a nice person. But that love was killing him. It was adding worry to the man, and he didn’t have the experience to shut it off.

  I had killed those demons at the World Juniors in 2002, but Asafa hadn’t really gone through the same system in Jamaica as me. He’d only raced in a couple of Champs, but there was nothing bigger for him at the junior level. As a kid he hadn’t faced the pressures of competing in an international meet like the World Juniors on a regular basis. Instead, he’d started as a pro and dominated from there. That meant that when the pressures came as a track and field star in major championships, he couldn’t deal with the attention and stress. That’s what I felt anyway. In Beijing, those big-race nerves had hit him again and he couldn’t handle it. He looked frozen.

  I couldn’t stand it. I caught him as he walked to the start.

  ‘Yo, let’s do this,’ I said, trying to hype him up. ‘This is going to be a good race. Jamaica, one and two. Let’s go. Come on …’

  He laughed, we bumped fists, and at first I thought my conversing had worked him up. But as we ran through our stride-outs and final warm-ups, I watched as the flicker of fear returned to his face. I knew right then that Asafa was not winning an Olympic gold.

  ‘Ah, crap,’ I thought. ‘There’s nothing I can do for him now.’

  I focused on my own game. The announcer called my name and I started doing crazy stuff. Maurice had trimmed my hair with some clippers the night before, so I rubbed the top of my head and ruffled my sideburns like it was the coolest style ever. People in the crowd were laughing hard. I was so relaxed, I just knew that I was taking first spot. And then the words rang out like an alarm clock.

  ‘On your marks …’

  The crowd fell deathly silent.

  This is it.

  Deep breath.

  I got to my line.

  Let’s do this.

  I settled into my blocks.

  Please, God, let’s get this start right. Let me get this start. Let me get this start …

  ‘Set!’

  ‘Come on …’

  …

  …

  Bang!

  The gun went.

  Man, a lot can go through a sprinter’s mind over 100 metres, and I’ve talked crap to myself in every race I’ve ever run in. That might sound crazy to a lot of people because the metres flash by in just over nine and a half seconds, ten on a really bad day for me, but in that time I can think about a hell of a lot of stuff: like my start as I burst out of the line, especially if I’ve left the blocks too late. I think about who’s doing what ahead of me in the lanes, or whether someone behind is doing something stupid, like trying to beat me. Seriously, I talk a lot of garbage in my head when I’m tearing down the track at top speed.

  Pow!

  I burst from the blocks, but Richard Thompson, the Trinidad and Tobago sprinter, was in the lane next to me and he got a start like nobody else in the history of the Olympics.

  Crap! How did he do that?! Now I can’t see where I am in the race, because he’s blocking my view of Asafa on the other side.

  I kept my eye on him all the way, extending my legs out of the drive phase. I made one, two, three steps and then I stumbled – I made a bad step and rocked to my right – but I recovered quickly and maintained my cool. I’d been through races before where I’d suffered a bad start, or a shaky first 20 metres, so I didn’t freak.

  Like Stockholm, yo. Remember Stockholm. Do not panic. Get through your drive phase and chill. Chill, chill, chill. Thompson hasn’t pulled away. He’s right there in front of you …

  I glanced across the line.

  He’s the only dude leading the pack.

  And then there was me.

  Keep chilling.

  I could feel my momentum building, my longer stride taking me past Thompson, and once I’d cleared him, I could see the rest of the line. I did a quick check – I was ahead, but there was no Asafa.

  Where the hell is Asafa?

  Everybody else was there, bunched in. Thompson, Walter Dix (USA), Churandy Martina (Netherlands Antilles), Michael Frater (Jamaica), Marc Burns (Trinidad and Tobago) and the other American runner, Darvis Patton, but still no Asafa. That seemed stupid to me, he was supposed to be there.

  This is kinda weird. He should be around …

  At 75, 80 metres I peeped again. I say peeped, but I actually looked back over my shoulder. I needed to know where he was.

  Where are you, bredder? You’re the man that’s supposed to be doing well here now Tyson’s not playing. What are you doing? Do I need to run harder? Can I chill?

  Then it dawned on me.

  Oh crap, oh crap … I’m gonna win this race!

  Talk about losing it. I went crazy-assed wild even though I was still ten metres from the line. I threw my hands up in the air and acted all mad. I pounded my chest because I knew that nobody was going to catch me. It was done, I was the Olympic champ and all the work I’d suffered with Coach had paid off – all those laps of the track had taken me to the tape in first place.

  He told me I could do it. He told me I was ready …

  Chaos followed me afterwards, just as it had in New York. I turned around and saw Asafa finishing in fifth, the other runners trying to catch me as I hurtled around the track, one finger pointing to the heavens. Richard Thompson was going crazy too, dancing and pulling all kinds of moves. Anyone would have thought that he’d won the gold medal, the way he was acting so hyped. Later that night, he told a TV reporter that he had won the race.

  ‘I took first spot,’ he said. ‘Usain was off, running his own thing. I won the normal 100 metres final.’

  I ran to the bleachers. A mob of photographers surrounded me, all of them sticking their cameras into my face as they tried to capture the perfect shot. I pulled my arm back like an archer drawing an arrow from his bow and aimed skywards – it was a mime, a bolt of lightning for my first Olympic gold.† The whole place exploded with flashbulbs, there were so many people around me. I was being mobbed by fans, but through the noise I heard Mom calling my name. I saw her face in the crowd – she looked so proud. I went over to her.

  ‘VJ! VJ!’ she cried, pulling me in close and handing over a Jamaican flag. Mr Peart was there too. I took a step back. My heart felt like it was going to burst out of my chest.

  ‘Hey, that’s number one,’
I said.

  I wanted to run around the track again – I needed to see Coach, Ricky and my friends – but one guy kept pulling at my vest. He was shouting, waving, and at first I couldn’t hear him through all the noise. But then his voice hit me like a Muhammad Ali hook to the jaw.

  ‘Usain, come on!’ he said. ‘You’ve got to have your picture taken with the clock and the new world record.’

  What the hell?!

  I hadn’t considered my time for one moment. Like with Tyson and the Grand Prix in New York, my focus had been clear: win first, worry about the clock second. I hadn’t even looked at the Olympic timer, a massive screen at the end of the track, but now I did, and there, next to the TV image of my face as I crossed the line – all joy, sweat, a loud scream of celebration – was the time.

  9.69 seconds.

  A new world record.

  Damn!

  ***

  I can’t remember what I was thinking at that exact moment. What goes through any athlete’s head when he breaks his own world record in an Olympic final? ‘Wow’, probably, plus all sorts of emotions that he can’t really recall. But I was surprised, because a gold medal had been the target, not my name atop a list of impressive, landmark times and superstar athletes.

  The strangest thing, I guess, was that I wasn’t blown away by it. In recent months, there had been a realisation that I’d found peace with being The Fastest Man on Earth. Since New York my attitude to it had been, well, indifferent – whatever. Sure, I knew it was a huge achievement, but I wasn’t a fan of the term and it had dawned on me that being an Olympic champ was so much bigger than being The Fastest Man on Earth.

  My theory for that was clear: at any time someone could run faster. A guy like Tyson could show up at a meet just weeks later, catch the perfect wind, pop a great start, run the race of his career and better my time. I might have been sitting there in Kingston, chilling, only to answer my phone and hear Coach say, ‘Usain, there’s been a meet in Doha and you’re not going to believe this … Tyson just ran 9.50 seconds. You’re no longer The Fastest Man on Earth.’ With that one phone call, the title was gone.

  I understood that because it had happened to Asafa. He had probably watched the New York Grand Prix on TV at home, cheering me on against Tyson. He wouldn’t have expected me to win – no way. In his mind he’d have thought, ‘Usain beating Tyson? Forget that.’ Then in front of his eyes the world record was mine. All of a sudden his title had left him.

  Gone.

  Over.

  Goodnight.

  But making permanent history was another matter, and that’s what I was happy about. By winning gold in the 100 metres final in Beijing I’d made the title of Olympic champion mine, for ever. I had the crown, an absolute accolade that nobody could scratch from the books. Not Asafa, not Wallace, not Tyson, not anybody. I was aware that the title of The Fastest Man on Earth had first come in New York, but it could go at any time. More importantly, I’d realised that records were the icing, but the Olympic gold medals were serious cake. Now I was hungry. You better believe I wanted more.

  * A strong tailwind can be a help to an athlete. The rules stated that a maximum tail wind of 2.0 m/s was allowed for a world record to stand. Tyson’s race was over that limit.

  † The idea originally came from a friend of mine, a dancer in Jamaica. I’d made a deal that if I won the 100 I would bust some crazy dance move. It was called ‘To Di World’, and I put my own spin on it by pulling a shape where I aimed my arms skywards.

  The Bird’s Nest was quiet when I finally escaped for the evening. It was gone midnight. The floodlights were down, the bleachers were empty. The only noise came from the sound of volunteers as they cleared the trash and swept the seats; I could hear the buzzing of an electric cart as it took away a stack of equipment. The silence seemed so spooky after the explosion of noise and colour a few hours earlier. God, I was drained. I’d gone through doping control and media – hours and hours of media – and now I wanted to get my chicken nuggets, see my family, Coach, and go to bed. I needed to chill a little.

  I called NJ, who was spending the summer working in America. Beijing was a long way away from our race strategy meetings in the William Knibb library, but the impact of my race had struck a chord with him, as it had with everyone else around me.

  ‘Yo, NJ,’ I shouted, my voice echoing around the empty bleachers. ‘We’ve finally made it to the big time!’

  By the time I’d got home to the Olympic Village, I received my first clue that everything had changed for me, and I mean everything. As my car pulled up outside the Jamaican building in the Olympic Village, a big crowd of people were hanging around outside. At first it looked if there had been a fire drill or some other incident; everybody was standing in the street, waiting. I glanced across at Ricky.

  Yo, what’s going on?

  ‘I think they’re here for you, Usain,’ he said.

  He was right. As I got out of the car, the crowd turned and surged towards us. People got crazy, asking for photographs. Volunteers, athletes, friends of athletes, there were all kinds of dudes gathered around, waving pens and paper, people shouting, ‘Picture! Picture!’ I did not know what the hell was going on. Someone yelled, ‘Do the lightning bolt pose!’ My life had been transformed for ever.

  I had figured that if I won an Olympic gold in the 100 metres, a few more people might recognise me. But this felt like something from a level much bigger than just a bunch of extra fans. It was larger, more ridiculous than anything that had happened to me before. There was actual hysteria going on.

  I needed the calm of the Jamaica house, just to take in what was happening. When I got inside, Coach and Eddie my masseur were waiting, as well as all the other athletes. Everybody was amped up and there was a party vibe going on. Maurice Smith had brought a video camera to China and he trained it on my face. ‘Yo, here’s The Fastest Man on Earth …’ he shouted.

  I laughed and stared into the lens. ‘I’m a big champion now,’ I said, taking it all in, soaking up the moment.

  I was glad to be home, if you could call it that. I was away from the madness and the intensity of the Olympics for a little while. The Jamaican team had a cool atmosphere about them, there was plenty of love between the athletes, and the mood in the village was chilled. In a lot of ways it was like the junior group I’d been involved with in Hungary and Kingston. Back then, the team had been more like a squad of footballers than a group of individual athletes, and there was a strong camaraderie among the kids. We’d talk our team-mates up before competitions, we would motivate one another; we’d counsel anyone who had been beaten in an event.

  The Beijing Olympics shared that same spirit even though there were some seriously talented and focused athletes in the group, including Shelly Ann Fraser, the women’s 100 metres gold medallist, Melaine Walker, who would go on to win the 400 metres hurdles, and Veronica Campbell-Brown, winner of the women’s 200 metres gold. My medal was the first one of the lot. It was about to set the ball rolling for Jamaica’s record Olympic medal haul.

  Coach made jokes – well, at least I think he was joking.

  ‘I’ve found some things to work on for your next 100,’ he said. ‘Improvements can always be made, Bolt.’

  I tried to remember every bit of the race, so I could converse with the others, to tell them how it felt to win an Olympic gold. Eddie wanted to know what type of kick I’d got when I fired down field.

  ‘Just joy, man,’ I said. ‘Like when I went at it on the track. I experienced a rush like I always did, but it was bigger. I felt a sense of freedom, something I couldn’t get from anywhere else. It was fun, excitement, an intense energy all rolled into one. It was beautiful.’

  Someone told me that my laces had been undone for the whole race. I started laughing. Seriously? I hadn’t even noticed, that’s how in-the-moment I’d been for those brief seconds.

  I breathed hard, I was drained. When I went into my room to relax, Maurice was there. I loved hangi
ng with him. For most of the trip we had been like a couple of kids, away from home for the first time. The pair of us talked and told stories, but most of the time we joked around. It drove Coach wild, because his room was just across the hall and he was always telling us to turn it down, but in a way Maurice and our school-camp vibe had created the perfect atmosphere in which to win medals. We had made a bubble, away from the crowds and the pressure of the Olympics. Whenever we kicked back, my mind was rarely on the Bird’s Nest Stadium, Tyson, Asafa or the races. Instead, we talked about girls, football and cricket. I hardly stressed about anything.

  That night was different. For the first time, Maurice wanted to discuss business.

  ‘Yo, what are you going to do about this world record in the 200?’

  My head hit the pillow, buzzing at the thought. I knew it was a big deal, everybody did. Michael Johnson’s time was 19.32 seconds, which had seemed out of reach for me. Nobody had broken it in the 12 years since his run in the 1996 Atlanta Games – the race that had first turned me on to the idea of being a track and field champ. Even the man himself figured it was pretty safe. He’d apparently told the media that I didn’t have the endurance to maintain the same levels of speed as he had, not all the way to the line, anyway.

  ‘I don’t know,’ I said. ‘I don’t think I’m gonna be able to do it. We’re talking about 19.30, 19.31, and I’ve never been close to that.’

  Maurice thought I had it in me, though. He was psyched. ‘But Usain, you’ve just run 9.69 seconds in the 100, just chilling, dawg!’

  ‘I know, but the 200’s steep,’ I said, ‘I don’t know. I’m just saying …’

  It was true, I genuinely didn’t know. That was my honest reaction and I wasn’t playing Maurice. Sure, I was confident of winning the 200, more confident than I had been for the 100, but I knew Johnson’s time was a huge target and my body suddenly felt pretty wiped out following the power and excitement of winning my first gold medal.

  Still, I knew I’d have to psyche myself up, because there was something important about the 200 metres and me, something that a lot of people hadn’t realised, maybe because they were so caught up in my success in the shorter distance. Truth was, the 200 was my favourite event. Forget the 100. Yeah, I knew everyone thought of the 100 as the superstar race and they wanted me to go faster and faster, but my dream was to be a 200 metres champ, more than anything else. It was the ultimate goal for me and winning an Olympic gold in that event was something I’d fantasised about all my life.