# He Is Almost Legend

- Link: https://exclusiveaccess.net/he-is-almost-legend/
- Published: 2012-08-06T11:12:10-04:00
- Author: EAN

I wonder will winning Thursday allow us to drop the ALMOST?

We want him to be Superman. We knew him that way four years ago, when Jamaican sprinter
Usain Bolt emerged on the global sports stage and took world records and gold medals
away from the Beijing Olympics with an ease that suggested he did in fact come from
another planet. We hadn’t paid much attention since then, and when the time came
for the world to watch Bolt again, it wouldn’t have been as much fun to see him 
as the runner who had struggled at times the previous two seasons.

He had kept putting on the show, the poses and finger movements, the miming a deejay
spinning a record, the pose that looked like a lightning bolt, to play on his name,
but actually came from a Jamaican tourism campaign called “To Di World.” It was 
a welcome to Jamaica, an invitation to share his world

When he struck the signature pose Sunday night at Olympic Stadium, with the Jamaican
flag draped over his shoulders, Bolt was right where we had left him in 2008. Superman
again. Maybe even more so, since the 25-year-old had taken another step toward immortality
at a moment when he seemed to be fraught with human vulnerability.

He won the 100 meters in 9.63 seconds, faster than the Olympic and then-world record
of 9.69 he set in 2008. Yes, it was slower than the current world record (9.58) 
Bolt set at the 2009 world championships, but that made no difference.

The point was Bolt had done something else remarkable, becoming the first man in
Olympic history to cross the 100 finish line first twice in a row. Carl Lewis of
the United States has consecutive gold medals in the event, but the second (1988)
came after Canada’s Ben Johnson was busted for doping.

“He is the Michael Phelps of our sport,” Justin Gatlin said.

Gatlin was the 2004 Olympic champion. Eight years later, having missed four for 
a doping suspension, he is just one of those vainly chasing Bolt.

Gatlin ran a personal best 9.79 seconds for the bronze medal. Yohan Blake of Jamaica,
who won last year’s world title when Bolt was disqualified for a false start, ran
a personal best 9.75 for the silver.

“There is no doubt he is the greatest sprinter of all time now,” said Richard Thompson
of Trinidad & Tobago, seventh Sunday, second to Bolt in 2008. “After seeing him 
today in the 100, he is definitely going to do something nasty in the 200 as well.

“It is difficult being in the same era as him. But he has done a lot for the sport.
A lot of people who don’t know anything about track and field look at it just to
see him.”

Truth be told, he is the sport, the man whose talent and joy helped track and field
drag itself from the morass of the doping scandals that brought down stars like 
Gatlin and Marion Jones. He knows what crowds want and gives it to them, winning
the big events and providing the antics that enliven the spectacle of races so short
it is hard to appreciate them without the benefit of replay.

If Bolt wins the 200 Thursday night, he will be the only person ever to win both
sprints in consecutive Olympics. And he will achieve the stature that has been his
expressed goal for several years.

“Then I will consider myself a legend,” Bolt said.

Bolt came into these Olympics with a cranky back and balky hamstrings. He had lost
to Blake, his training partner and protégé, in both the 100 and the 200 at the Jamaican
Olympic trials in June. He seemed to have lost his dominance.

Then he took command of the 100 where he always had, midway through the race. And
he blew apart what would turn out to be the fastest bunch of followers in Olympic
history. On Sunday, four ran faster than Thompson’s second-place time of 2008.

“It really means a lot because a lot of people doubted me,” Bolt said. “A lot of
people were saying I wasn’t going to win, that I didn’t look good. It was even greater
to defend my title, to show the world I’m still the No. 1, I’m still the best. **
_That’s what I do. I show up on the day_**.”

He did not notice that someone threw a beer bottle behind him on the track as the
runners took the set position. He did not notice a scuffle in the stands, when one
man reportedly restrained another who was trying to run on the track.

“For me it was all about just reacting and executing my first 30 meters, because
I knew my last 50 meters are the best part of my race,” he said. “I just ran, that’s
all.”

It often looks that simple in the 100 meters. But there are at least five distinct
pieces of the race, the start, the drive phase, transition, the peak of acceleration
and the attempt to minimize the deceleration at the end.

Bolt’s coach, Glen Mills, had told him not to worry about his usual slow starts,
the downside of trying to extricate a 6-foot, 5-inch body from the blocks. When 
he hit one of those starts perfectly, in the 200 meters at the world championships,
Bolt ran 19.19, shredding the world record of 19.30 he had set in the event at the
2008 Olympics.

Bolt added a new twist Sunday night. After his victory lap, he did a somersault.

“He is a showman,” Gatlin said.

Who showed what happens when you tug on Superman’s cape.

@olyphil