Faster than Lightning

by Usain Bolt

  It’s funny, that whole race was about running hard. My drive phase was hard, I ran the corner hard and I tore down the straight hard. But I wasn’t straining or over-exerting myself. I was fresh, I had power. And once I’d established that the race was won, I glanced up at the clock. Whenever I ran a 200, I could tell roughly how fast I was going to run by judging my distance from the line and looking at the time. Once I approached the finish, I knew my record was there for the taking. I didn’t even bother leaning.

  19.19 seconds.

  Another world record.

  The truth is, had I dived at the line, I would have gone faster, 19.16 seconds maybe, but because I had made it look easy, people started talking crap about how I had been holding back. The fans knew that whenever athletes broke a world record they received bonuses from their sponsors, and a conspiracy theory went around that I was chilling so I could break my time again and again in some crazy money-making venture.

  If only it was that simple. Track and field is hard, and while I could judge whether I was going to beat my own time, or not, as I was going round the track, it was impossible to gauge exactly how fast I would finish. The reality of a sprinter’s life is that several factors come into play whenever they break a world record, including strength, fitness, state of mind and luck. That night it all came together and I’d run the perfect race. Well, I thought I had. Coach had other ideas.

  ‘Nah, your shoulders were a little bit too high,’ he said. ‘You kept looking over.’

  That was the final straw for me. I decided in that moment never to ask him about my performances again. Think about it: I had run well, I’d broken the world record and taken gold. In my mind, that was as good as it got. But not for Coach. He still managed to find faults.

  And that was just a little bit depressing to me.

  * I’d been a United fan since I was a kid. I’d first watched them when Premier League games were screened on Jamaican TV. The Dutch striker Ruud van Nistelrooy had been playing at the time and I was really impressed by his game, he was such a good striker. I’d loved them from that moment, and every Sunday I turned on the television set hoping Manchester United would be playing.

  The older I got, and the more I travelled with track and field, the more I saw of them. Then I found out they were the biggest club in the world, so I guess it was lucky that they were my first game. Oh man, can you imagine how bad it could have been had it been West Ham or Blackburn Rovers?

  It was party time.

  From the minute I’d taken my 200 metres gold medal in Berlin, I was dead. It had been a tough year and my lack of background training after the car smash meant that I wasn’t as fit as I would have liked. When the 4x100 metres relay came around in the Olympiastadion, I was a different athlete to the one that had helped Jamaica to break the world record in Beijing. As soon as I set off on my leg, my energy faded. I could hear another athlete breathing down my neck, but there was nothing I could do to get away from him. I collapsed to the ground after I’d made the change with Asafa, who sped to first place, but it had been too close for comfort. Michael Frater had to pull me up from the track afterwards because I was too burned out to celebrate.

  I wanted to rest; I needed to chill out. The following season, 2010, was set to be a quiet year – there was nothing in the way of major championships, so I made the decision to relax for 12 months. Sure, I would train and I would try my best to race fast. I just didn’t want to exert the same amount of effort as I had done in previous years.

  Shortly after the World Champs had finished, I explained my new mindset to Coach.

  ‘Yo, 2010 is my off season,’ I said. ‘I’m gonna take it easy. I’ll work hard, but I’m not busting my ass like last year, or the year before …’

  The man was not happy.

  ‘No, Usain!’ he said. ‘You’ve gotta train. You can’t relax. You have more championships to win.’

  I understood his reasoning. He was my trainer; he was supposed to motivate me to be the best in the world. Coach was always reminding me that I was getting paid, and I had to win races, but I’d made a decision not to stress until 2011 came around. I knew I needed to blow off some steam. My body was weak, my brain was tired out from all the hard work. I wanted to enjoy myself for a while. Besides, without a break I wouldn’t be able to step up when it really mattered.

  In the off season, the parties came thick and fast. As soon as I’d returned home, I organised a ‘9.58 Super Party’ in St Ann in Jamaica. I wanted to celebrate my new world record. All the money raised went to the building of a health centre in Trelawny and a lot of people came out to support the night. Asafa was there, Wallace even showed up. The top DJs from Jamaica played sets for all the fans. It was wild.

  The only downside to my success was that some people were now viewing me as a national star on the scale of Bob Marley, especially after my world record-breaking performances. Sure, I was happy to represent Jamaica and promote the image of the country, but the comparison to Marley – the most famous Jamaican ever – freaked me out. When I had travelled to Hungary as a kid for the World Youth Championships, we had been taken to a concert, and I’d watched amazed as European bands covered all his songs. I couldn’t believe it. The crowd was going crazy. I knew Marley had been massive in Jamaica, but I didn’t know his popularity had extended that far.

  ‘What?’ I thought. ‘This is huge! What’s really going on here?’

  So naturally, I felt weird when people compared me to him. There was pressure all of a sudden. It bothered me, and any time someone made the suggestion I would shrug it off and make excuses.

  ‘Nah,’ I’d say. ‘Let’s not say that I’m bigger than Bob Marley. I’m one of the icons of Jamaica, yeah, and being compared to Bob is an honour, but he’s huge, man.’

  Still, I couldn’t escape the fact that I was the most famous athlete on the planet. I won the Laureus Award for World Sportsman of the Year in 2009 (I would win it three times in total, later in 2010 and then 2013), which was a huge deal because the previous winners had included the tennis player Roger Federer, the golfer Tiger Woods and the F1 driver Michael Schumacher. All of those dudes were massive. It was amazing to know that I was in that top class.

  The madness that had first exploded in 2008 hadn’t calmed down, either. Wherever I went, I was bombarded by autograph requests, often by other sportsmen and sportswomen, or celebrities. After the Olympics, I was invited to functions all over the world and every night the queue for my signature stretched down the hall. The line was filled with famous faces, including sportsmen and women, musical artists, and famous businessmen. I’ve got to admit, I didn’t know who some of them were and often I’d have to turn to Ricky for help.

  ‘Who was that?’ I’d whisper, as another guy left my table with an autograph.

  ‘Oh, that’s the world champion in such and such a sport,’ he’d say.

  It was crazy.

  I wasn’t complaining, I got to meet some cool people in some wild places. Shortly after Berlin I was hanging out in a London nightclub, chilling with friends and a bottle of champagne, when all of a sudden I was approached by some crazy dude with insane long hair and an even crazier shirt. When I looked at it, the colours blew my mind. It was an explosion of red, blue and green, with polka dots and shiny patches. Wow, even Mom’s seamstress skills couldn’t have pieced that top together!

  ‘Hey, Usain, I’m Mickey Rourke,’ he said, extending a hand. ‘Fancy a race?’

  I’d heard of Mickey from his movies. He was a Hollywood superstar, but his challenge caught me off guard. It was 4 a.m., and the man looked a little worse for wear, but I thought it would be fun, so we stepped outside. When the small crowd that had gathered around us shouted ‘Go!’ I let him beat me by a couple of inches. Mickey was pushing 60 years of age at that time, there was no way I was going to smoke him in the street at 4am. It would have been rude.

  Clearly, the world was spinning so fast that even I couldn’t keep up with it. Luckily, I had
my friends around me to keep my feet on the ground: Ricky and Coach, Pascal Rolling of Puma. Puma had been my long-time sponsor and whenever a football team or school in Jamaica asked me for help, he would always send them some kit to play in, or training equipment. Meanwhile, I bought a house in the hills of Kingston and was able to chill in peace and quiet. NJ had returned to Jamaica to work as my Executive Manager and he moved in to the house, my brother Sadiki, too. Most nights we would sit around and play video games or dominoes.

  Despite my relaxed attitude, when the season started, I wasn’t in bad shape. There were a few 100s during the schedule, plus a couple of 200s. I made some pretty good times too, including 9.86 seconds in Daegu and 9.82 in Lausanne; in the 200 I made times of 19.56 and 19.76 in Kingston and Shanghai. I even ran a 300 metres race in Ostrava, where I nearly broke the world record, but without a World Champs or Olympic Games in the diary, there wasn’t a big enough challenge to inspire me. When my races were done, I tried to find a party.

  I was careful, though: when I went out, I always made sure not to drink too much, and I kept my behaviour away from the public eye most of the time. The only time I got caught out happened during a beach party in Jamaica. At first I wasn’t convinced I should go. The sun was shining, the crowd was outdoors and that meant that everybody would be able to see what I was getting up to.

  In the end, I figured, What the hell? And man, was I glad I did, because it was the baddest party I had ever seen in my life. There were semi-naked chicks on the beach, people were drinking and the beats were everywhere. It was insane. Then a friend handed me a huge funnel overflowing with beer. The plastic tube seemed to go on for ever. There must have been several bottles of drink poured into the container.

  ‘Come on, you think you’re The Fastest Man On Earth,’ he said. ‘Let’s see how fast you can do this.’

  It was the chance of a lifetime. I was an athlete, I had never been to a college ball or a frat party before. This was my chance to act like other people, so I drank that beer down fast. But damn, the next day a photo of my stunt was splashed all over the internet and Coach was not impressed. I couldn’t blame him.

  Sometimes the fans got angry as well. They saw me enjoying myself and freaked out. One time, a guy came up to me in a Kingston club and started to complain.

  ‘Come on dude,’ he said. ‘You party way too much.’

  I stopped him in his tracks. ‘Listen, what’s the problem with me partying?’ I said. ‘Am I not doing my job?’

  He looked flustered. He tried to answer back, but I wasn’t finished.

  ‘Think about it for a minute: I party and I still win. I don’t party, and I win. What’s the difference?’

  The cat had nothing to say after that.

  The only guy who was able to lecture me with authority was Coach. He tried to push me into working harder at the track and the gym, but even he struggled. For the first summer in four years I had returned to Jamaica in the middle of the season. It was the time when the World Championships and Olympics normally took place, but without them I could chill at home instead, and in summer the parties in the Caribbean were epic. When I went back to race in Europe in August – the DN Galan in Stockholm was my first meet – I was not prepared properly. I’d enjoyed too many late nights before my flight to Sweden where I was due to run the 100 against Tyson and Asafa.

  Coach took one look at me as we met in the hotel and realised that my involvement was a waste of time. I looked awful. Just by checking out my eyes, he knew I wouldn’t be able handle the competition. I wasn’t energised, and a couple of days later, I finished second in the 100. My back had tightened up because I hadn’t done the exercises I needed to strengthen my core and my legs felt sore. My natural rhythm was gone. I flew to Munich to see Dr Müller Wohlfahrt for a check-up.

  ‘No, no, no, Usain,’ he said. ‘It’s as if your back and hamstrings are made of stone. No more running for you this season.’

  It was time for the celebrations to wind down.

  ***

  It wasn’t just Coach who was hassling me to work harder. There was a new face at the track, a young dude by the name of Yohan Blake – or just Blake, as we called him – and it was clear from the minute he’d arrived at Racers in 2009 that the kid was going to be a strong athlete. For starters, he ran both the 100 and 200. But also, he was quick, really quick, and his junior times had been nearly as impressive as mine. In July 2009 he had run races of 9.96 and 9.93. He was 19 years old at the time.

  Physically, Blake was very different to me. He was shorter, around five foot 11, and he was younger by three years. But he was built like a bulldog. The muscles in his body started at his broad neck and shoulders and seemed to explode outwards on the way down. There was serious power in his arms, core and legs, and when he came out of the blocks he looked like an animal as he tore down the track.

  I admired his work ethic straightaway, plus he was a nice guy. I learned pretty quickly that he loved cricket, which gave us something to talk about. But while I had a passion for the sport, Blake was obsessed. He lived for it and at weekends he would play for a team in one of the Jamaican leagues. He was also sheltered. He didn’t drink and he certainly didn’t party. From what I could tell he had been a little naïve when it came to girls, too. One day when we were kicking back at the track, talking about sex (like men do), he told me that his high-school coach had warned him that if he fooled around, it would slow his races down, and he wouldn’t run smoothly. Even worse, Blake had actually believed him.

  ‘What?’ I thought. ‘For real? I was way smarter than that when I was studying at high school.’

  The guy had desire, though. From the minute he arrived at Racers, Blake had attacked me on the track. He loved to compete and he would battle me in everything we did together. If Coach got us to run a 10-metre sprint he would try to beat me. If we had to run 300-metre reps, he would have to finish first. I think crossing the line ahead of me when we worked together made him feel better about himself, but it didn’t bother me. I understood that we had different attitudes to training.

  ‘Dude, chill out,’ I said to him one afternoon. ‘Relax. Seriously.’

  Even though I was putting my feet up at the time, I still knew he had his priorities wrong. Having worked with Coach for several years, I had learned to listen to my body. I usually knew when I had to work harder, or if I wasn’t running correctly. If I had been sprinting for an afternoon with my shoulders too high, I would realise it before Coach could start shouting at me. I also knew when I could relax and get away with it most of the time. I always did the right amount of training to get me to the start line of a major champs in good shape – never too much, never too little. If Coach asked me to run a 25-second run over a set distance, then I would run 25, maybe 26. I would never push myself any harder. That’s how I knew it had to be done.

  Blake was different, though; he pushed hard. If Coach told him to run 25 seconds, he would go at it and run a 23. He was way too competitive. Blake also had some learning to do of his own. A bit later on in the season, Coach was forced into giving him a week off because he was too fit.

  ‘Go home, Blake,’ he said. ‘Your body cannot get in any better shape than it is now. It doesn’t make any sense for you to train anymore. You’ll only tire yourself out and you won’t be prepared for the next race.’

  Too fit? That was the first time I’d ever heard of that happening at Racers.

  If Blake thought he was psyching me out with his performances in training, then he was wrong. He hadn’t come to understand me yet. Some people might lose heart if they’re continually getting beaten by a younger rival in training. Their confidence might drop. They might think, ‘Oh s**t, this cat’s going to take my place.’ I didn’t think like that. I let the daily competitions wash over me, because I knew that I only came alive when the stakes were much, much higher than background training or practice starts.

  Still, I liked the fact that I’d been given a serious rival in the camp. E
veryone knew that Blake had ambitions to take my title; he wanted to be the number one sprinter in the world, but I found it useful to see him working on my doorstep. Every time a season started, one of my first thoughts was always, ‘Hmm, I wonder what kinda shape Tyson’s going to be in? And Asafa? And the next guy, and the next guy …’

  With Blake, I didn’t have that worry because he was right there beside me. I could watch him. I could check how he was going to work out as a competitor. If he was going to be a challenger, I could see it every day and step my s**t up; if he was getting stronger, I could learn about it at close hand. But I was also in a position to learn about his weaknesses and what made him tick.

  One or two athletes thought it might be a bad deal for both of us. Kim Collins claimed that it would be a disaster because ‘two male crabs can’t live in the same hole’. But I couldn’t work out why everybody was stressing. I was able to look at everything that was going on with Blake. That meant I could do enough to be one step ahead of him when it really mattered.

  ***

  Stepping up was tough, though.

  For the very first time, I worried that the magic might have gone for ever. I feared the moment when I might not be able to execute on the track. An athlete’s life is short, their time at the top fades quickly and I knew at some point in the future I might lose my edge. Occasionally, as the 2011 season got started, I would run poorly, and sometimes I had to work really hard to win races in the last ten metres, which was unusual for me. In those moments I would ask questions of my form as I crossed the line.

  ‘What the hell was that?!’ I’d think. ‘Hmm, I wonder if I’ve still got it …’