by Usain Bolt
When I was a youngster I never thought about running for money. It was for fun, and winning was a bonus. It wasn’t until after the world juniors and my last year at William Knibb that it became apparent to me that if I took it seriously athletics could be my career. It’s a short career, however, and I want to earn as much as I can out of it. I’m not paid on a par with the top soccer stars, but over the last three years I’ve done well for myself.
I am very involved in the decisions about my business activities, but I’m confident that I have surrounded myself with a professional team who continue to give me good advice in securing my future after athletics. I’m not one of those who don’t know where the money goes. I check my bank statements every month, and if there’s something I’m not sure about, I’ll ask. I’m meticulous when it comes to contracts too, reading through the important clauses.
These days we get all sorts of offers to endorse companies and their products. My management team handles the proposals and recommends the ones they think are best. We then go on to the next stage, examining the details of each proposal before making a decision.
I have a long-standing sponsorship deal with Digicel, and another with Puma which goes back to high school days. Puma stuck by me when I wasn’t doing well, and I am still with them to date.
I endorse the drink Gatorade, and my fridge is always stashed full of those bottles. I have done a series of commercials with them over the years, through which I’ve met other sporting stars. My success has given me the opportunity to do commercials with my teammates and even my mom. My career as an athlete has evolved, and because of it I have added several dimensions to my life.
These include associations with other brands, a clothing line and fragrances. We are also delving into the entertainment world with the opening of a restaurant, to be named “Usain Bolt Tracks & Records”. In 2010 we’ve been working on developing the Usain Bolt brand. We’ve designed a logo based on my signature pose, accompanied by the motto “To the World”.
When I made that sign after the Olympic 100 meters in Beijing, I couldn’t have dreamed of the impact it would have. It turned out to be a brilliant marketing tool. It has everything – the Bolt shooting down the opposition and the world records, and firing off into the stratosphere.
You can’t imagine how many times I’ve had to do that pose since Beijing. When I returned to Europe to compete after the Olympics, people were going, “Do your Bolt” – and that’s when I realised it was becoming my symbol. The crowds went crazy, they loved it.
For a joke I sometimes tell people that my sponsors only let me do the sign so many times a year – it’s the way my contract is structured – and they believe me! They go, “Do the Bolt, do the Bolt,” and I’m saying, “Sorry, my management team says I can’t today.” Even when I’m old and can’t run any more, people will still be asking me to do The Bolt.
Companies are paid thousands to come up with an idea like that, and I just did it out of nowhere. Michael Jordan has a big slam dunk jump as his signature – mine is The Bolt. There aren’t many people in the world with a symbol, although it was a bit of a mess when I first did it. I’ve refined it now by the way I lean, and I’ve tried to get it straighter. The logo is on my spikes and is featured on a range of training gear and clothes which we’ve brought out.
I love the idea of having my own range. It’s my business and I’ve had input into everything. I like graphics on my clothes, and samurai cartoons and skulls, so we are working on ways to incorporate those images into the design, while the shoes will have high tops, because that’s what I like.
Athletics has given me lots of new opportunities, and I want to make the most of them.
Colin Campbell, a sports rep on the Jamaican Teachers Association, first told me about Usain, and when I saw this tall, lanky boy winning the primary school finals I thought to myself, “We have to have him, we have to get him.” High school sports are very competitive and we’re always looking out for new talent. You could see Usain was exceptional, so the headmistress Mrs. Margaret Lee arranged a scholarship for him.
Although we are away in the country, far from Kingston, there is a proud tradition of producing top athletes in Trelawny. Lerone Clarke, who was in Usain’s team for the 4x100 meters in Berlin, is from Trelawny, so is Veronica Campbell-Brown, the women’s 200m champion in Beijing, while the Olympic sprinter Michael Green also went to William Knibb. But there has never been anyone quite like Usain.
He wanted to run every race in school for his house team. He did 100, 200, 400, 1500, the relays and even cross country, but didn’t take training very seriously at first. We had to put pressure on him to make sure he went to training and called in his father, who thankfully made sure his son did as he was told. Usain wasn’t a difficult child to deal with, but he just loved life. I’d describe him as playful, he couldn’t sit still. He would be forever flicking the back of my ear and running off.
I wouldn’t say he was completely dedicated to his school work, which is why Mrs. Lee brought in Norman Peart to look after him. That was the making of Usain. Norman was a former pupil at William Knibb, who was an outstanding student and a good athlete. He understood the pressures on top young sportsmen when they were also trying to get an education. The idea was that Usain might go on to a scholarship at a US college, and to do that he not only had to be a good athlete but had to pass his exams too. As it turned out he never showed any interest in going to an American university.
When he first came to us he was also well known as a cricketer, but we wanted him for athletics. The cricket coach had to tell him, “I’m sorry, I can’t keep you.” Usain wanted to play soccer too, but we said he couldn’t do that either. We were saying, “Leave the soccer alone, man.” We told him he had a gold mine in his legs.
I would make sure he had all the training gear he needed, and since he won the world juniors we have never wanted for anything in terms of equipment because Puma supply it all.
We all went to the world juniors in Kingston, and while I thought Usain could win, I was so nervous I couldn’t watch. His coach Mr. Barnett had to tap me on the shoulder to tell me he’d done it. It was a great achievement for a 15-year-old to come out on top in a world event for those aged up to 19. It didn’t matter to him when he was up against older boys, he liked the challenge.
I watched the Beijing 100 meters on a big screen in Falmouth, where an Olympic village had been set up for the townspeople There was a wonderful atmosphere and I cried with joy When he crossed that line, slowing down and looking around all over the place, it was exactly the same as he used to do it in school. The criticism aimed at him for the way he smiles and laughs in his races is unfair. That’s how he always was. I’ve known Usain since he was 12, and that smile has never left his face. Even at that age he would turn around and call to his opponents to hurry up . You’d have needed a very long camera lens to get some of them in the picture . He wasn’t being disrespectful to the other athletes, he was just out there enjoying himself.
The evening after he won the 100 meters I went to see his dad at his shop. He’d always supported the school in everything we did for Usain, and he was a very happy man. Parents deserve credit when their children do well. As a teacher I know how important they can be, and without his dad’s influence, Usain might not have achieved what he has.
Usain tells people I’m his second mother and still calls me Miss T. I’m always in his corner and tell him, “Win, lose or draw, whenever you go out there always do your best, because doing your best is good enough, and if you fall, I will be there for you. “ We have not seen the best of Usain. I think he can go faster – if he takes it a bit more seriously.
MY SEASON IDEALLY STARTS IN NOVEMBER, when I begin preparation for the year, which goes up to September in some cases. This really gives me six weeks’ vacation, most of which is spent carrying out sponsorship duties. Six weeks is about the same amount as a business executive gets. So my job, although not nine to five, involves long
hours of hard work.
Take a close look…The scoliosis has forced my hips out of alignment which, as I said, makes my right leg shorter than my left. If you watch me closely you can see how I subconsciously push my weight on to my right side, because it feels awkward standing on my left leg and I have to bend my knee to balance. The problem caused a lot of hamstring pulls and is why it was once thought I should give up the sport. But we worked out that keeping my back strong was the key to avoiding injuries, and I do a lot of back exercises to keep myself supple. Even today sitting in the same position for too long causes my back to ache. It used to be agony in economy on a long-haul plane flight. I had to keep getting up to walk around, or I would have seized up. Travelling first class eases the pain.
I’m so lucky that I’m raw talent. If I really worked at it I could be extremely good indeed, but I never have. Yes, I put the effort in at times, but I could do more. I’m able to run 9.9 seconds in a competitive 100m race without any training at all. If I train right, eat right, go to the gym all the time and dedicate myself 100 percent, then I definitely will do crazy times. At the moment I still don’t do everything 100 percent, missing gym and training sometimes, and not doing all my workouts. It’s hard, man. I don’t know how some sportsmen do it.
But coach will never let me neglect training completely. If he says we need to get things done, we get them done. He knows what I’m like, but I respect him enough to know that when he says it’s time to work, then it is. Everything goes on hold, even parties. I’ve proved I can get serious; it’s just doing it over a sustained length of time that is the difficulty.
When I’m in full swing, I get down to the Spartan Gym in Kingston in the morning and do a full one-hour workout which involves weights, bench presses, leg presses, tricep pull-downs, behind head pull-downs, arm curves, rowing, calf raises, leg extensions, special abs work, and maybe a few squats - although not too many with my dodgy back, and definitely no treadmill because if I jog for too long my calf gets tight.
There are huge mirrors around the gym and if my muscles and abs are not sharp I don’t like seeing my reflection. I tend to look more and more once I start getting the abs right, although they’ll never be as good as Merlene Ottey’s. She was an iconic figure in Jamaican athletics, and when I saw her abs at the age of 44 they were a lot better than mine. “Damn,” I thought, “she’s looking good.” Her abs were rock hard, and I might as well not have had any compared to her. It made me realise I needed to work out a lot more.
I confess to being body-conscious, and when I see my muscles standing out I know I’m working hard. You can tell you’re in shape by looking at the muscle tone. I know how I’m supposed to look at a certain point of the year as I’m building up to the start of the season. When I’ve had a good month’s training I can feel the benefits and see them.
After the gym workout I’ll go home and maybe eat some pasta, reluctantly, and then it’s off to training at about 4 p.m., when the sun is less intense. We go through the drills of the day which typically might consist of five 200m runs, or five 150m sprints, or a mixture of the two, one of which will be a proper competitive race with my clubmates, followed by various exercises and a visit to the massage table to ease my aching back.
Being 6ft 5ins tall with size 13 feet is, apparently, not good for a sprinter. I’ve been told that a study by the Journal of Sports Science and Medicine discovered that world champion sprinters have typically been between 5ft 9ins and 6ft 3ins. Admittedly, when you are my height and with those feet it takes time to get going but, then again, I make up the ground quicker because I’ve got a bigger stride than everyone else. When I won the 100m gold and set the world record in Berlin I covered the distance in 41 strides to Tyson Gay’s 44, but my stride frequency was the same as his. I ran almost full out in that race. I was looking around a little bit, but not too much, and it’s probably the hardest I’ve run. That might sound like a strange thing to say, but I set the world record the year before at the Olympics without running hard.
No one’s been able to explain why I’m so fast. Maybe I’m a freak of nature, maybe scoliosis actually helps, I don’t know. However I’m put together, though, it works.
My height did make starting a problem, but I’ve improved dramatically since working on the 100 meters with Glen Mills. I used to come up off the blocks too quickly, instead of completing my drive phase, which lost me vital time. The first four strides have got to be powerful and you have to stay low. Now I rise up gradually over about 35 meters. It’s only at 50 meters that you should be completely upright.
Improving my time in the 200 meters has been about concentrating on the corner and negotiating it correctly. You can be the fastest man in the field and lose if you take the bend wrongly. I had to practice, practice, practice, practice and did so much work on it. I used to lean into the corner, but that’s not the right way; you should do it the way a racing car driver goes into a corner. As you reach the apex you are going to go wide automatically, but you want to be sliding back across so that you stay in the middle of the lane. Any leaning should be slightly forward rather than to the side. Michael Johnson would run completely upright and at times seemed to be leaning backwards. It worked for him, but it never did for me; nor does it for the majority of sprinters.
I always looked up to Johnson as an athletics hero, because his was the era before mine. But Don Quarrie was the legend in Jamaica and my favourite athlete. I’ve seen tapes of some of Quarrie’s races and he was like the best corner man ever, so smooth. It’s a very specialised thing to be able to run a corner properly. That is why, no matter how fast I run the 100 meters, the 200 will always mean more to me, because of the effort I’ve put into it.
RACING COMES
EASILY TO ME,
ESPECIALLY THE
100 METERS
My reaction time to the gun has also got better. Training partners Daniel Bailey and Yohan Blake are very competitive on starts, and that has helped improve my reaction times. We have some great contests, and whoever does it best has bragging rights for a week. It’s not easy to get it right. If you go a fraction of a second early, the pressure eases on the blocks and you will be called for a false start. You could also stumble at the gun, which is always a danger with my big feet, but you can’t afford to worry about that, you have to stay focused on positives. If you let doubts creep in, it’s trouble.
The first step after the gun is vital. You must make sure you are balanced on your centre of gravity, with the next steps being dictated by the first one. One of the basic mistakes of sprinters is to start off so fast that they shorten their stride and tip over. Making sure it’s smooth and balanced is the most important thing.
The racing comes easily to me, especially the 100 meters. I don’t have any great preparation routine. I might do some stride-outs and stretches and get a bit of a massage, but most of the time I’m just messing around. I used to listen to my iPod, but Coach banned it because he says it stops you concentrating properly. I don’t worry about who I’m racing against or what’s going to happen, I just go out there, entertain the crowd, and win. I don’t need a psychologist or anyone to help my mind. I can work it out myself. I think my attitude has rubbed off on a lot of the other athletes, who aren’t nearly as intense as they used to be, having seen that the laid-back approach works for me.
I will check out the crowd, wave to them, think about how I’m going to entertain them, do a bit for the camera when it focuses in on me, and make sure the spectators in the stadium and those watching on TV enjoy themselves.
It’s not until the starter says “Take your marks” that I’m properly focused on the race. I’m never nervous. I hardly think about it till I get down on the blocks.
I’d like to cut out the habit of looking around me as I run, because I know it would improve my times. It’s a bad habit that I’ve had since high school, and I do wonder if Coach will carry out his threat to put blinkers on me. He has threatened to do it often enough.
/> When I get it all right by focusing better, sharpening up my start, staying low right through the drive phase, not looking around, and going flat out across the line, I’m going to be good, very good.
WHEN I’M FINISHED WITH ATHLETICS, I want to relax and maybe own a few businesses, but I would still play soccer every Sunday evening with my friends.
I am a great fan of soccer, and I especially admire Cristiano Ronaldo and Wayne Rooney. Not all the guys in the game are skilful, they’ve just got a turn and a good shot. I watch Emmanuel Adebayor, who plays for Manchester City, and think, “I could do that.” I call him “One-touch”. If you look at Adebayor’s goals he uses his first touch to turn and beat you and then tries to kick it in the back of the net. I realize that sometimes if he takes more than one touch he loses the ball.
Ideally if I was to play soccer I’d sign for my favorite team Manchester United. People might say that’s not realistic, but nobody’s seen me play so you never know. If Alex Ferguson saw me in one of those charity matches he might think I could be the man to replace Ryan Giggs. Or maybe when Ferguson retires I might call up the new coach and say, “Listen to me, Rooney needs somebody to support him now – I’ll be that one.”
I was a lover of all sports when I was growing up. I took up athletics because I was the fastest, but I did enjoy playing cricket and soccer. If there was a big soccer match on TV, I’d be watching it, and sometimes I’d end up being late for training and as you can imagine my coach would give me an earful.