Most of us will recall the exultation we felt at the exploits of the Jamaicans at the 2008 Beijing Olympics in winning six gold medals, five of them in the sprints, with the magnificent Usain Bolt leading the way, with gold in the 100m, 200m and the 4x100m relay and the unprecedented feat of setting world records in all three events. Most of us wanted to be Jamaicans then. More importantly, with the Trinidadians also winning silver in the men’s 100m and 4x100m relay, we felt good that we were all Caribbean people.
If Jamaica had arrived at last as the dominant world power in the sprints, then the Caribbean, with six representatives in the men’s 100m final and three in the men’s 200m final, along with four women in the 100m final and five in the 200m final, could certainly lay claim to being the cradle of world sprinting. And Usain Bolt was the superman of the sprints and, until very recently, the headline act for London 2012.
Maybe the charismatic Mr Bolt is still the top draw for many, but his aura is now somewhat diminished. At the Daegu Athletics World Championships last year, he showed that he was human after all, when he false started in the 100m final, won by his compatriot and training partner, Yohan Blake, in 9.93 seconds. Normal service was however resumed in the 200m, with Mr Bolt storming to an emphatic win in 19.40s, then the fourth fastest time ever and the third fastest of his life. The false start was dismissed as an aberration.
But since the World Championships, we have seen the continued rise of the young pretender. A few weeks later, in Brussels, Mr Blake scorched the track to win the 200m, clocking 19.26s, the second fastest time in history, just seven-hundredths of a second behind Mr Bolt’s 2009 world record. Then, as if to stress that his performances were no fluke, Mr Blake pulled off a double shock at the Jamaican Olympic Trials, last weekend, by beating Mr Bolt in both the 100m and 200m, the former in a personal best 9.75s and the latter in 19.80s, both, incidentally, world-leading times for the year.
Not one known for making excuses, Mr Bolt was clearly out of sorts at the Trials. A notoriously slow starter, he had problems out of the blocks in the 100m heats and final. He was also unhappy with his bend in the 200, even though his grimacing with the effort of trying to catch his stable mate in the last strides of the race probably said more about his lack of conditioning. The latest news is that he has withdrawn from the Monaco Diamond League meet on July 20, to have treatment for a “slight” injury to his right hamstring sustained over the weekend.
In the context of Mr Bolt’s stellar career, 2012 has not been a good year. In addition to the signs of vulnerability on the track, he has had to contend with negative press about his six-month relationship with a white, Slovakian-Canadian fashion designer, which he ended to concentrate on the Olympics. Then, just last month, he was involved in an early-morning car crash, returning from a night out in Kingston, though he was not injured.
It seems that Mr Bolt is not mentally and physically where he wishes to be in the build-up to the London Games. Obviously, he is not in top form and it remains to be seen whether he can peak in time for the Olympics. But we should not underestimate his motivation. Some of us may already consider him a legend but the man himself does not think so.
After the Daegu 200m, Mr Bolt disarmingly gave his own view of his accomplishments: “I’m not a legend yet. I’m on my way, but I’ve got to go to London and blow people’s minds, to go to the Olympics and do something extraordinary.” His twin defeats in Kingston would have brought a little more perspective to bear and he may actually benefit from no longer being the clear favourite.
Now, the prospect of Yohan Blake and Usain Bolt going for Olympic glory, with the likes of fellow Jamaicans Asafa Powell and Warren Weir, the Americans Tyson Gay and Justin Gatlin, and the Trinidadians Richard Thompson and Keston Bledman also in the sprinting fray, is positively mouth-watering. And with double Jamaican champion Shelly-Ann Fraser-Pryce, her compatriots the evergreen Veronica Campbell-Brown and Kerron Stewart, Trinidadian Kelly-Anne Baptiste and the Americans Carmelita Jeter, Allyson Felix and Sanya Richards-Ross, in the mix on the female side, all the sprints promise to be a treat.
Whether or not you believe in Michael Johnson’s theory that a “superior athletic gene” in the descendants of West African slaves is responsible for the sprint dominance of black American and Caribbean athletes, there can be no doubting the great hope in the Caribbean that our sprinters will repeat their glittering success of 2008. Heaven knows, we need something to cheer about. And, notwithstanding Mr Bolt’s problems, it would be a rash person indeed who would write off his chances of reprising his Beijing heroics.
