Jamaica’s Usain Bolt, the fastest man on earth

Taken from YahooSport news.

BEIJING – Like the best of showmen, Jamaica’s Usain Bolt left us wanting more. Twenty meters from the finish line, his celebration began. He relaxed his arms, looked toward the crowd and slapped his chest. And despite those theatrics, he still covered 100 meters faster than any man ever has.

He did it in 9.69 seconds, and immediately one had to wonder how much faster he could go. Faster than a speeding bullet? The showman teased our imaginations. But he denied us the answer, shrugging off questions about why he coasted for the final 20 meters rather than obliterate the world record. “I didn’t come here to run the world record because I am the world-record holder,’’ he said. “I came here to win.’’ This wasn’t so much an Olympic 100-meter final as a tantalizing one-man show. Because the World’s Fastest Man is also the World’s Biggest Ham. He was dancing before the race even began. Shimmying in front of the starting blocks, Bolt struck a pose during pre-race introductions as if the race was over before it started. Turns out it was, and Bolt had post-race entertainment planned for the enthralled sellout crowd of 91,000. It took him fewer than 10 seconds to run 100 meters but at least 10 minutes to complete his victory lap. He pulled off his gold spikes and held them aloft, wrapped himself in a Jamaican flag and clowned as if he were on stage at a karaoke bar rather than on the biggest stage of the Olympics. “I like to have fun,’’ he explained.

Munching on a post-race snack during a press conference, Bolt said there would be plenty of time to test his limits and lower the world record. That’s the most mind-boggling part about it – what might come next. He is only 21, and his specialty is the 200 meters. Like a lot of things in life, Bolt runs the 100 for fun. At 6 feet 5, he stands in stark contrast to the shorter and stockier sprinters. Too tall to run the 100, most experts thought before the jolly giant arrived on the scene. It took him five races as a pro before he broke the world record. At 15, Bolt became the youngest-ever world junior champion in the 200. He qualified for the 2004 Games at the age of 17, but an injury derailed his chance of medaling. His coaches then urged him to begin running the 400, too, but Bolt hated the 400 workouts. So earlier this year, he and his coach cut a deal.

Comments:

Wow..i thought only me who discovered it and discussed with my friends. Like mentioned in the news, he is the most relax runner i ever seen. Be4 the race, he alrdy dance assuming he gonna win the race. It is very unusual to see that a runner is far ahead of others in 100m event. Normally it will be like a straight line of runners only to distance apart about 1-5 m before the finishing line. 20 m before reaching the finishing line, he alrdy raise up his hand pointing towards the audience and tapped his buttocks. The question is why didnt he focus in his run to get an even faster time. As you do not know the timing, most runner would run as fast as possible in order to win the gold medal as well as breaking the records. His attitude is like he know he going to win and break the records, so why need to run faster? The previous world records was 9.89 sec and he clocked 9.69 sec for the new world record. It was unbelievable fast speed. Imagine if he did not do such acts and runs at the fast pace all the way to the finishing line.. it might be 9.4-9.5 secs. I seriously doubt on the accuracy of the timing in this Olympics. The clock may be accurate but the time to start from zero may be delayed. It is just my point of view. If you see Michael Phelps, he has become the legend by winning 8 gold medals in Beijing and a total of 11 Olympics gold medal. Malaysia didn't even have a gold medal yet. So far as to my knowledge he is the one who has up to now win so many gold medals and breaks so many records. The issue is not the gold medal but is the time he has clocked for the events he participated. So, what do you think??