LONDON, CMC – His “Project Bolt” in tatters, British sprinter Dwain Chambers has been spending time these days hailing the exploits of Usain Bolt.
The 31-year-old Chambers finished sixth in the 100 metres at the World Championships in Berlin, where the Jamaican sprint superstar Bolt ran an incredible World record of 9.58 seconds.
“The performances he was putting in leading up to the Berlin World Championships in August this year were like a series of slaps in the face to the best sprinters in the World,” Chambers wrote in The Observer newspaper.
“They were outstanding, no one could get near him, and it seemed as if he were winning every race at a canter, merely playing with the opposition.”
He added: “I relished the chance to match up with Usain, a chance denied to me for far too long. I ran the fastest time I had run for 10 years in that [Berlin] final and still I couldn’t get anywhere near him. That 100m final in Berlin was full of thoroughbreds. But Usain Bolt was Shergar, Sea the Stars, and Nijinsky rolled into one.”
Chambers said: “He won every single race this summer, but some would say he showed one or two signs of weakness, even looked a little wounded at times.
“Wounded my [behind]! He just applied a plaster to those wounds, got right back on his horse and carried on riding all the way to yet another two World records.”
Chambers admits that Bolt has been good for the sport of track & field, but he wonders how he has achieved so little in such a short period of time.
“How much faster will he go?” he asked. “The question of performance-enhancing drugs inevitably rears its ugly head, but Usain Bolt is clean and honest and innocent.
“However, the Jamaica Athletic Association does itself no favours by still refusing to introduce random testing.”
He continued: “Usain is so much fun to watch and his presence within the sporting world is massive. He hasn’t changed; he was the same confident, slightly arrogant performer before all of those records started to tumble. This is a true sign of a person who is honest with himself and loves to entertain his adoring public. He is rightly held up as the saviour of our sport. Long may it continue!”