The theory that success rewards hard work has been sensationally dismantled
since Usain Bolt began etching his name on the world's consciousness and in
Jamaica, where we were informed that chicken nuggets and yam were the fuel
for beating the world, you will be pushed to find anyone to reassemble it.
The hurricane season has not been kind to Jamaica. Banana plantations have
been flattened and torrential rain has closed many of the roads northwest
from Kingston to Trelawny. But when you do get through to Bolt's home town,
his father, his mother, his former coaches and his teachers all chime with
the same head-shaking amazement that leaves an impression not of the
22-year-old superstar's extraordinary ability, but of the potential he has
yet to fulfil.
There are huge depths of affection for Bolt, that much is clear - the product
of an irresistible charm as well as his infamous playfulness. Lorna Thorpe,
the head of sport from his school, William Knibb Memorial High, was so close
to him she used to be called his second mother. “Oh my God,” she says. “I
love him.” Yet this is the woman who was reduced to tears to get him to
devote his time to the school track.
Even Bolt, in a quiet moment away from the nationwide fanfare, is not remotely
interested in denying the remarkable truth. “In only one in ten of my races
do I go all out,” he says. “Why? I don't know. I think it's a bad habit, not
very professional.
“Since I've been young I've been winning, so I got into the habit. I'm trying
to break out of it. But when I really run all out, I'm going to be really
tired. So if I see I'm going to win, I do stop and conserve energy.”
On the main street in the Trelawny parish of Sherwood this week the grocery
store was shut while its owners - Bolt's parents, Wellesley and Jennifer -
were off enjoying their son's welcome home. Bolt's success may have been bad
for his father's business, but the paternal relationship was clearly key in
the success of the business of his son. Thorpe recalls: “His father would
ring us when Usain didn't want to train and say, ‘You keep him down there.'”
“It was hard,” is Wellesley's recollection. “Sometimes I really had to put my
foot down. Then he would listen and say, ‘OK, no argument.' That's the type
of person he is.”
Bolt's memory is different. “You knew what would happen if you didn't behave -
in Jamaica, everybody gets beaten,” he says. “My dad was very strict. I was
brought up with a strict code. We feared our dad. He's big and when we were
small he instilled this fear in us.”
Back at school, Thorpe used different methods. “I always thought it was my
responsibility to get Usain to do his training,” she says. “So I cried
sometimes when he didn't do it and Mr MacDonald, the maths teacher, would
say to him, ‘You've caused the staff to cry.' And he'd then immediately go
and change for training.”
Training in those school years was led by Dwight Barnet, the first real
athletics influence on Bolt's life, but he, too, had to find ways to keep
the youngster interested. He used to sell Bolt the concept of a rabbit and a
greyhound, so he would line up his junior sprinters and set them off with a
head start before telling Bolt to chase them down.
Like many, Barnet was so dazzled by Bolt's innate talent that he struggled to
pin down his best event. “I always used to think the 200 metres and 400
metres,” Barnet says. “But I think he could have done anything. He ran the
odd 800 metres and would beat some of the field.
“I remember one time he came to the long-jump pit and said, 'Can I have a
try?' And without training or technique, he jumped over seven metres [the
women's long-jump gold medal in Beijing was won with a leap of 7.04 metres].
“I also remember when he first did a proper 100 metres in training and he did
around 10.50 seconds. We were shocked. I actually think he could easily be
as good at 400 metres as the 100 metres, but he did not like the 400 metres.
I seriously think he was afraid of working hard.”
Afraid? Again, Bolt is not in the business of issuing denials. “For 400
metres, the training's really intense,” he says. “And I'm not into really
intense training. You've got to work on your endurance; it's a lot of work
every day.”
The answer, for Bolt, came from Maurice Greene. It was while Bolt was
switching his interests from football and cricket that Greene, the American
sprinter, exerted a near-complete dominance over the men's 100 metres. Bolt
liked that and he told Barnet so. Together they vowed that he would annex
the 200 metres in the same way. So a few years later - on August 20, when
Bolt was lining up for the 200 metres final in Beijing - Barnet had to walk
away from the television and tell the boys to update him on the result. “I
was a bit sentimental,” he says. “But that was our event. And I loved the
way he ran the curve and into the straight. Maybe I was being selfish, but I
so wanted him to break the record.”
Wellesley also missed the race - he was in the air en route to China, having
been persuaded that he should join his wife and Bolt's Jamaican girlfriend,
Mizicann Evans, at the Olympic party. But what he left behind was hardly
dull. Some 60 people had crammed into his house for the 100 metres. “I
hadn't bought any drink because I didn't know they were coming,” Wellesley
says. “After the race we went on a 53-vehicle motorcade around the parish.”
In Falmouth, another local parish, a mini-Olympic village had been set up and
this was where Thorpe watched her young favourite make history. She did so
in the company of a couple of those old rabbits he used to chase, who have
given up on being as fast as him and have become a teacher and a
restaurateur.
But there is one other significant person who still has not seen that 200
metres, and that is Bolt. The 100 metres was replayed so many times that he
could hardly avoid it, but he has been trying to catch the 200 on YouTube -
yet NBC, the American broadcaster, has blocked it.
He wants to see that one because he wants to know what one of those rare, 100
per cent, “all out” races looks like. “The night before that 200 metres
final I told my room-mate, Maurice Smith, ‘I'm going to leave everything out
there on the track tomorrow,'” Bolt says.
“Yes, I have ditched training sometimes because my friends have been going to
hang out somewhere. And yes, it's hard when you are young and sometimes you
just do what you want to do. But for that 200 metres I also did what I
wanted to do, I just kept on running.” It that a habit worth getting into?
“It's a very decent habit indeed.”
Bolt's Ruud awakening
“Even when Arsenal were winning, I was a Man United fan,” Usain Bolt said
yesterday. Indeed, proof of the strength of this particular affiliation was
Bolt's promise that no amount of takeover talk would persuade him to leave
what is now the poorer side of Manchester.
So Manchester United can add the world's fastest man to their celebrity guest
list. Bolt would like his name on it because he has every intention of
watching his first match at Old Trafford some time before the year is done
and has told his agent so.
The source of this love affair? “It was Ruud van Nistelrooy, right, that did
it for me,” Bolt said.
Putting Jamaica on the map
Bob Marley Reggae singer who performed with the Wailers until his death
in 1981, aged 36, from cancer. Most famous songs include I Shot the Sheriff,
Could You Be Loved and No Woman, No Cry.
Grace Jones Singer, model and actress (she appeared in the Bond film A
View to a Kill), who was best known for her “flat top” haircut and for
slapping Russell Harty during a television interview.
Shaggy Growly voiced reggae artist most famous for his songs Oh
Carolina and It Wasn't Me.
Willard White Bass-baritone opera singer who won a Grammy in 1977 for
Porgy and Bess and has regularly performed at the BBC Proms.
Courtney Walsh Fast bowler and former West Indies captain who held the
world record for the most number of Test wickets from 2000 to 2004. Made
ambassador at large and special envoy of Jamaican Government.
Usain Bolt is the 4-6 favourite with Betfair to win the BBC Overseas Sports
Personality award for his exploits at the Olympic Games in Beijing. The
other main contenders are: Michael Phelps 2-1; Padraig Harrington 8-1;
Rafael Nadal 13-1; Roger Federer 25-1.
