by Usain Bolt
The Brazilian striker Ronaldo was the first soccer player I remember admiring from watching games on television, then Juan Sebastian Veron and Gabriel Batistuta became my soccer heroes and Argentina my team. While most Jamaicans supported Brazil, I thought I’d be different and cheer on their big rivals. I had to make an exception at the 1998 World Cup, though, when the Reggae Boyz of Jamaica were in the finals. My own country had to come first that time, but we aren’t in the World Cup very often so you need another team.
I used to go and watch Jamaica and got to know Ricardo Gardner, who is with the English Premier League team Bolton Wanderers, and Ricardo Fuller, who is also in England, playing center-forward for Stoke City.
When we got to World Cup ‘98 we did it by skill, which is what we do well. I feel they are trying to change that and to make Jamaicans play like they do in England, even though that is not our natural way. In Walter Boyd and Theodore Whitmore we had skilful soccer players who would take on five guys on the field and, if they lost it, no one minded – they had tried. That’s what made them so interesting. Skills are what Jamaica is all about, and the team will only rise again when we get that philosophy back.
I started following Manchester United because of the Dutch striker Ruud Van Nistelrooy, a tremendous goalscorer who was always in the right place at the right time. After he left to go to Real Madrid, I kept supporting United because I enjoyed the way the team played.
While in Manchester for the 150m race before the 2009 World Championships, I was lucky enough to be invited to United’s training ground, although I wasn’t allowed to join in because they had an important game against Arsenal the next day. Alex Ferguson may regret missing the chance to see me in action.
I saw United draw the Arsenal game to win the Premier League title, and what a moment it was to be in the directors’ box at Old Trafford! I had a video camera with me for both days and the tape is one of my most treasured possessions. There is a shot of Rooney, the England striker, who for a bit of fun was playing in goal during training, and when he made a good save he turned to me and said, “Make sure you put that on YouTube.”
At the time there was a lot of media interest in me advising Cristiano Ronaldo – who became the FIFA World Player of the Year -how to run properly. It’s true I suggested a tip about putting his knee further forward to stop falling over when he runs at top speed, but I don’t know if he was listening. After all, if you fall down it helps you get free-kicks and penalties and, when you’ve been running the same way as long as he has, it’s hard to change. I know how difficult it is to alter your style as a sprinter, and that’s without a ball at your feet.
My house is packed out with friends when United have a game on, not just with those who support the team like me, my brother and NJ, but also the “Man United Haters Club”, who come round to cheer anyone who is playing against us.
If we are against Arsenal, Chelsea, Liverpool, or Manchester City, I get very worked up, and you will hear me start cussing when we miss chances. My hater friends love it, and we get into some right arguments in very fast Jamaican patois that would be incomprehensible to anyone else.
I DON’T RESENT
WHAT THE SOCCER
PLAYERS EARN,
YOU CAN’T DO
THAT, BUT I THINK
WE TRAIN HARDER
THAN THEM.
One of the best matches I ever saw was the 4-3 derby win against Man City last season and it almost got me into trouble with air traffic control. Oh my God, was that a game! I was supposed to be getting on a plane in Antigua but was watching in the VIP departure lounge and couldn’t move.
They were calling me for the plane and my friends were saying, “We’ve got to go, we’ve got to go, now,” but I said I wasn’t leaving till the match was over. When it went into injury time they said the plane was going without me. I stayed where I was, and when Michael Owen scored the winner it was fantastic. I was running around like one of the players and just made the plane thanks to a very understanding cabin crew. I may have enjoyed some special privileges that day. We took off late and my belated apologies to any of the passengers who were inconvenienced -United just seemed too important.
I saw Cristiano Ronaldo again after he joined Real Madrid. We’d done an interview at this big newspaper in Madrid and, as we left, I looked at his car and said, “I like your Ferrari, nice.” You know what he replied? “Yeah, but I need to get a new one because I don’t like the colors.” I was thinking, “Are you serious? It’s a Ferrari and you are going to change it because you don’t like the colors?” It was then I thought, wow, imagine if I had played professional football.
I don’t resent what footballers earn, you can’t do that, but I think we train harder than them. We are practicing for seven months each season before we start running competitively, but then on the other hand they play so many games. We run maybe 20 times in a year, but they play 50 to 60 games for 90 minutes each time, so overall they probably do more work than us.
Real Madrid’s Bernabeu Stadium was a spectacular place. The sound goes straight up and then comes crashing back down on you. I walked on the pitch to do a ceremonial kick-off and have never been so nervous in my life, with all the fans chanting my name. I only had to kick off but, man, I was shaking. It must be great for those guys to go out there each time with the crowd screaming for them. Maybe it’s not so good if they’re losing, though.
I didn’t get to go out on the pitch at Old Trafford, but I have some great souvenirs of my day there. The goalkeeper Edwin Van der Sar gave me his jersey from the match against Arsenal, and I bought all the other players’ shirts, which I have hanging in my walk-in wardrobe at home. I’ve also got shirts of Kaka’s, Van Nistelrooy’s and Raul’s, and, though I’m a United fan, I’m proud to own a signed England shirt from the Liverpool captain Steven Gerrard, which he wore in a friendly against Egypt.
There is another souvenir from my encounters with soccer players which astonishes me even now. It came from Samuel Eto’o, who used to play for Barcelona. We were doing an event for L’Equipe, the French sports paper, and I was looking at his watch, which had so many diamonds round it, I was almost blinded. He saw me looking and said, “Do you like the watch?” I replied, “Yeah, it’s good.” He took it off and handed it to me saying, “You can have it.” I was left standing with my mouth open holding this watch, which was so heavy it felt like it would break my arm. I just about managed a thank you and he said “No problem” and walked off. I don’t wear the watch too often because it’s so heavy, but I still have it on the dressing table in my bedroom. I found out it’s worth 35,000 euros [approximately US$46,200.00].
I’ve bridged a sporting divide between athletics and soccer. Diehard soccer fans know who I am, which is great. They go, “Hey, Usain Bolt, you’re the man,” and I have to sign a ton of autographs, but it’s good, awesome.
I’m constantly amazed how if I go to a soccer dinner, everyone wants my signature and to have a photograph with me.
And it shocks me how a lot of players know me. I met the Chelsea star Didier Drogba in a club in London and he was like “Usain Bolt!!!!” I thought it should have been the other way round, with me wanting to see him, because when it comes to strikers he’s one of the best goalscorers in the world. He’s so strong and skilful and so often in the right place at the right time, it’s like he can see into the future. He gave me his number but I lost it along with Frank Lampard’s and Ronaldo’s too. Sorry for not ringing, guys.
My favorite sports are soccer, basketball and cricket, and I will watch a bit of tennis if the Williams sisters are playing or Roger Federer. I like car rallying too, but I’m not so much into Nascar or Formula One grand prix racing, which is too long. No one ever seems to overtake and the only excitement is when they go into the pits.
My basketball team is the Boston Celtics, and I support them because of one man, Kevin Garnett, who won a gold medal at the 2000 Olympics. Garnett is a very good role model to me, he’s ver
y determined and puts his heart and soul into everything he does. When he’s injured, or sitting on the bench, he is still cheering his team on, and that’s a good example for any athlete. When he’s not out there on the court he’s like another coach. I met Kevin when we did the Gatorade commercial together for the Superbowl, and I really look up to him – which even I have to do because he is 7ft tall.
I watch quite a bit of basketball. Most games are on in Jamaica at around 8 p.m., and I get quite excitable when the Celtics are playing, just like I do with United. At primary school I always thought I’d be a cricketer, and I think that’s what my dad wanted. He was a real cricket fan. Pakistani Waqar Younis was one of the best bowlers ever, and his in-swinging yorker was like nothing else I’ve ever seen.
The fact that in high school they wouldn’t let cricket interfere with my athletics curbed my interest, which waned further with the decline of the West Indies as a team.
I’m not a big watcher of Test matches unless the West Indies captain Chris Gayle is batting – when he gets out, I leave. Test cricket can be boring unless the batsmen are trying to score runs. I’m not into the science of it, I’m an aggressive type. I like the way the Australians Matthew Hayden and Adam Gilchrist play, as well as the English guys Kevin Pietersen and Andrew Flintoff, and the Indian Virender Sehwag. Like Gayle, they play an aggressive, entertaining game.
Test cricket is better than it used to be, though. Years ago the emphasis was on not getting out and playing no shots at all, with the aim of getting a draw. Every ball outside off stump the batsman would leave. At least now teams try to win rather than making the draw their first objective.
Gayle has become a good friend of mine and I like to give him advice about his game – although, like Ronaldo, I’m not sure that he listens. I am forever telling him to leave the running to me, because he is always running himself out. I think he still hasn’t listened to me. Bowling Gayle in a charity cricket match is one of my treasured moments. Honestly, it was right up there with winning the Olympics.
There was a big crowd in and it was an awesome day. We’d been at each other’s neck beforehand, having met in a club where I was saying, “I’m going to get you,” and we were generally mugging each other off. He said, “You’ll never get me out,” and that in any case he had bribed the umpire to call a no-ball against me if I did hit his stumps, just to make sure. Well, he didn’t bribe the umpire enough.
The game involved pro cricketers and invited guests, and I swear I psyched Chris out. I knew he would be trying to pull me and was going to go after anything too close to his body, so you had got to keep it outside off stump. I sent the ball down, he went to whack it and it came off the inside edge of his bat and shattered his stumps to give me my prize wicket.
But I’m a fair man. Having proved I can bowl him out, I’m going to let him try and get his revenge and even things up. He can race me over 100 meters any time he wants.
From the day he started school, Usain would run all the way there. He was way faster than the other kids, although at that age you don’t think of your child as a future Olympic sprinter, you just wonder how you’re going to keep up with him.
He was seven when he won his first cup for running. I watched the race and he won easily, going further and further away from the others. He was enjoying life and making the most of it, and the teachers told me what a talented sportsman he was.
Usain was a good boy, curious and full of fun too, always joking and messing with me . Even today he will sit on my lap when he comes home and calls me “Mummy”. He will always be my little boy and I’m still way too soft with him. When I go to his house in Kingston it’s just like when he lived at home. I get on with the washing and the cooking as if we were back in Trelawny.
We never called him by his proper name of Usain but by his pet name of VJ, in keeping with the Jamaican tradition that everyone has a pet name. Mine is Jen-Jen, which is a bit more explainable than VJ. I can’t remember why we came up with that, there was no particular reason for it. His dad, Wellesley, is known as Gideon, and no one knows why that is either. I always call him Gideon, never Wellesley.
Usain would sometimes go to church with me at the weekends but usually a lot later than I did . You have to be at church by nine, and he would be lurking around or lying in bed and wouldn’t come until nearly eleven, when church finished. I’m quite religious, and he has some beliefs, but he’s not a big churchgoer He preferred spending time with his video games and watching the cartoons on TV.
We would always have breakfast and dinner together as a family. He loved bacon and eggs for breakfast and dumplings too. As long as it wasn’t fish he was happy.
When he came home from school he would do his homework then be out playing with his little group of friends, but only as far as the gate, where I could see him He was forever running around You would see him one minute and the next he was gone. I never knew he could be one of the greatest runners until he won the world juniors The evening before he went off to Kingston for the race he cried because he didn’t want to go He said, “All the other runners are bigger than me.” He was 15 and some of the others were nearly 18. We had to sit down and talk to him with his grandmother before we got him to go.
I went to Beijing for the Olympics and had butterflies in my stomach for the 100 meters but I was determined to watch. I sat quietly till the end of the race and then went wild . Norman Peart was beside me telling me it was a world record, and I thought, “That’s my boy. “ I was so proud. I’m not an emotional person really, but it was so exciting and I gave him a hug. I was much more relaxed for the 200 meters, I knew he’d win.
Sometimes his life now scares me. He is out and about in a land where there are a lot of incidents of crime and violence. I’m not fearful because he is famous, I’m just acting like any mother. He likes clubbing, but I went out too, so I know what it’s like and what dangers there are. I tell him to be careful because not everyone around him has good intentions.
He has changed my life and all our lives, but we have got used to it. We live the way we always have, we are simple people. We are very close, and any mother would be proud of him. Everybody tells me I have a wonderful child and that they wish he was their son.
THERE IS ONE PROMISE I CAN MAKE about the future – the 2016 Olympics in Brazil will be my last major competition. I won’t be the type of athlete who obstinately keeps on going in a vain attempt to defy the passage of time. I want to be a legend in the sport, and that means defending my titles from 2008 at the London Olympics in 2012, but I want to go out at the top, when I’m still unbeatable.
I am not a legend yet. Anyone can win an Olympics. Winning once is not the mark of a great athlete, in my estimation; you have to do it again if you are to stand out from the crowd. Michael Johnson took four gold medals in three successive Olympics and eight golds in four World Championships, which definitely makes him a legend. So too was Ed Moses, the 400m hurdler, who was first in 122 consecutive races, won gold in the Olympics of 1976 and 1984, and didn’t lose for nearly ten years between August 1977 and June 1987.
In Don Quarrie’s case I will break my own rule about what qualifies you as a legend, because although he failed to defend his 200m title at the Moscow Olympics he still got a bronze, and then took a silver in the relay at the 1984 Games in Los Angeles. Quarrie is a national sporting hero and a man all Jamaican athletes admire, although the daddy of them all was Arthur Wint, who won Jamaica’s first ever gold medal over 400 meters in 1948 and then the 4x400 meters in 1952. He also won silvers in both Games at 800 meters.
When I met Johnson I asked what persuaded him to retire after he turned 33, and he told me there was nothing else to do. He had broken world records, defended titles at the Olympics and World Championships, gone on winning streaks and beaten everybody. He was bored and there was no reason to go on.
I don’t think I’ll get bored. What will make me finish is knowing how hard you’ve got to train to achieve the same things over
again. If I didn’t have to train I’d probably go on forever, because I enjoy the whole camaraderie of an event, the travelling, being with my friends and the competition.
I might do the 400 meters and the long jump at the Brazil Olympics, which finishes on my 30th birthday, and then have one more season on the circuit after that before calling it a day in 2017. I’ve been asked why I don’t try the World Indoor Championships for a change, but it’s not for me. In the 200 meters the bends are too tight, and I think I would seriously hurt myself if I tried the 60 meters because I wouldn’t be able to stop in time. I’m a big guy and when I get going at full speed off those blocks it takes time to slow down. There’s not enough run-off space in the 60 meters before you go crashing into the foam mattresses at the end. I know they’re only soft, but I’d still be hitting them fairly hard and would be tempted to pull up a bit, which could cause an injury.
I won’t be running beyond the age of 32, no matter what. You could offer me 50 million dollars and I wouldn’t do it. Some people go on running until they cannot physically put one leg in front of the other, but that won’t be me.
Merlene Ottey, who raced for Jamaica with such distinction for so many years, wanted to go on for ever. After falling out with the Jamaican team over her selection for the Sydney Games she changed nationalities and went on to compete for her new nation, Slovenia, in Athens at the age of 44. She very nearly made it to Beijing in 2008, but just failed to qualify. I think Merlene was trying to set the record for the person who kept doing track and field the longest. She should have retired and left us with memories only of her as a brilliant sprinter, because she was really, really good. I’ve met her a few times and she’s cool – and man, those abs!