When Usain Bolt’s legacy is considered in years to come, it might be hard to grasp the significance of the impact the Jamaican has had on his sport.
No other track athlete has come close to achieving the triple-triple of sprint gold medals, in the 100 meters, 200m and 4x100m relay, that could be his by the time he turns 30 on August 21.
Carl Lewis has nine golds in his collection, but four came in the long jump. Bolt’s hero Michael Johnson backed up the 400m, but not the 200m.
Usain Bolt put down a marker ahead of the Rio Olympics as he won the 200 meters at the Anniversary Games with a time of 19.89 seconds and fired a warning to his American rivals.
Usain Bolt may go back on his plan to retire next year and has the 2020 Olympics on his mind as track and field endures troubled times.
Neither of those two great Americans dominated as Bolt has done since he claimed his first Olympic clean sweep at Beijing in 2008.
Yet, despite an injury-interrupted couple of seasons in the lead up to the Games in Rio, you can guarantee that one person who will seem serene in the Estádio Olímpico João Havelange next month is the man chasing history himself.
During a candid media session on London’s South Bank last week, Bolt suggested with a smile that his chance of returning from Brazil to Jamaica with three more gold medals were “always the same: great.”
This is a man who revels in his status as the quickest sprinter. “Footballers [soccer players], you have to debate who is the best footballer,” he said, “but no one can debate who is the fastest man in the world.”
Neither does Bolt think his world records for the two sprint distances will be bettered by anyone else for “a long time” — or that any of his rivals have found the form to give him cause for concern in Rio.
Bolt oozes confidence, but his views are proffered with a humor and good grace that has enabled him to become the face of his sport and made him so popular.
Meanwhile, Bolt has given a “thumbs up” to the decision to ban the Russian athletics team from the Rio Olympics because of widespread doping.
The IAAF, world athletics’ governing body, banned the Russian team last month and that decision was rubber-stamped by the Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS) yesterday.
The Swiss-based body rejected an appeal against the hard-line IAAF stance by the Russian Olympic Committee and 68 individual athletes.
Speaking ahead of this evening’s Muller Anniversary Games in London, 29-year-old Bolt said the situation was “sad” but the decision would send a powerful message about clean sport.
“For me, if you have the proof and you catch somebody, I definitely feel you should take action,” said Jamaica’s six-time Olympic sprint champion.
“If you feel like banning the whole team is the right action, then I’m all for it. Rules are rules and doping violations in track and field (are) getting really bad, so if you feel like you need to make a statement, and this is how you feel like you need to make a statement, then thumbs up.”
But the view from Russia is very different.
Double Olympic pole vault champion Yelena Isinbayeva told the TASS news agency that the verdict was “the funeral of track and field” and dismissed it as politically motivated.
Earlier this week, a second major World Anti-Doping Agency-funded investigation revealed that Russia’s doping was run by the Ministry of Sport, facilitated by the secret service and anti-doping set-up and encompassed almost every Olympic and Paralympic discipline.