by Usain Bolt
‘Oh, that kid has potential,’ they’d say about one 200 metre champ. Or, ‘That one’s in his last year – he won’t get any faster.’
A younger boy who finished fourth in his event might have a greater talent than the slightly older champ, and so a coach would take him under his wing and mould him into an Olympic star-in-waiting.
I knew where Jamaica’s power was coming from, and if those kids at Champs followed the right path, then the 2016 Olympic trials were going to be a damn sight tougher than the ones I’d just experienced. My defeat by Blake had already proved they were an event as intense as any other. It looked to me like Jamaica’s passion for track and field was going to crank the national standard up a notch or two, because some of those up-and-coming kids were seriously strong.
They had confidence, too. I remember one schoolboy came down to the track a few months before the London Games. He was a 200 sprinter with game, but he was talking all kinds of crap about how he was going to break my Champs record that year. I looked at him and tutted.
‘For real, now?’ I said. ‘You know what? Go and break the 200 metre junior world record at the World Juniors first and then come talk to me.’
That boy missed out by 200th of a second at Champs, and when he came back to the track a week later, he looked all embarrassed. I walked past him with Blake, deliberately talking loudly so he could catch my every word.
‘These young-assed kids, they talk every day about how they’re gonna break my records and how they’re gonna beat me and all kinds of crap. They should know better by now.’
He stayed silent, shaking his head. Coach leant into him.
‘I told you not to come up here,’ he said. ‘They’re just going to tear you to pieces for running your mouth off.’
I was only messing with him, but I was trying to teach him a lesson too, because an athlete couldn’t just aim for the number one guy when they’re that young. Instead, he or she had to chop their way upwards. But the kids didn’t realise that at the beginning. Instead, they looked to me first and thought, ‘I’m gonna beat Usain Bolt.’ They didn’t understand that first they had to beat Tyson, Asafa, Blake and Wallace Spearmon. Then maybe they could come for me afterwards.
I told the kids, ‘Yo, it’s a long line. Go for them first. You’re not going to go right to the top and threaten me.’
With Champs turning over so many athletes, there was every chance a contender might come at me later down the line, but that was years away. For now, London 2012 was my time, and Jamaica’s also.
***
If there was one man I was looking forward to racing in the heats of the 100 metres it was Justin Gatlin. The US sprinter had been busted in 2006 for returning a doping test with high levels of testosterone, and he’d served a four-year ban, but that wasn’t the cause of my annoyance.† I wanted to beat him because Gatlin liked to talk before races, and he loved to intimidate the other sprinters in the blocks, which seemed a little silly to me.
I had seen it happen during a race in Doha that year. Everybody knew he was hyped about his second shot at the big time and that he had wanted to make an impression, but Asafa was the only Jamaican lining up against him that day, and the pressure not to lose was big. I’d even warned him, ‘Yo, Asafa. You can’t let him win. There’s no way he’s supposed to come back after so many years of not competing and beat you.’
When the pair of them got to the start line, Gatlin did his thing. Before races, he rolled a bit like that other American sprinter, Maurice Greene – a top dog back in the day. Maurice was the 100 metres Olympic gold medallist from the 2000 Sydney Games, and a former world record holder with a time of 9.79 seconds. He was also an intense guy. He used to pull faces and stare people down in the call room, which must have been scary because he was a big guy, seriously muscular. He knew that if another competitor was intimidated by his showmanship then he couldn’t focus on the race ahead, which gave Maurice the upper hand.
Times had changed since then, and there was a real respect among the athletes when I began as a professional, but Gatlin wasn’t playing nice. He thought he was in a boxing match, he thought he could roll like Maurice. In Doha, he eyeballed Asafa, and Asafa seemed to fade. Gatlin took him at the line and, man, I was pissed. As he stole first place, he raced down the track and pulled a gun salute, firing imaginary six-shooters into the air. His showmanship didn’t end there, though, and in the press conference afterwards he started talking crap to the media.
‘That’s one down,’ he said. ‘Two to go.’
He was referring to the Jamaican sprinters. Blake and me were apparently his next targets.
‘Oh my God,’ I thought. ‘That’s embarrassing …’
As I watched the scene unfolding on TV, I wanted to grab Asafa and squeeze his neck; nobody felt good about the result. I was pissed, Blake was pissed, and at training the following day, we both asked the same question: ‘How had Asafa let that guy think he was so good?’
But then Gatlin had already tried to pull the same stunt on me when we met in the IAAF Zagreb World Challenge. I think he figured he could scare me in the same way he’d scared Asafa, because as we stretched and did our stride-outs from the blocks, he looked across at me, stared me down and spat in my lane. The saliva flew from his mouth, almost in slow motion, and landed on the track in front of me. I couldn’t believe it, I laughed my ass off – it was too funny.
‘What?’ I thought. ‘For real? You think that’s going to intimidate me? Spitting in my lane? Please.’
I knew it was going to take a lot to get me angry, mainly because of the way Pops had rolled with discipline when I was a kid, but also because I wasn’t freaked or bothered by someone like Gatlin. He wasn’t going to scratch the surface; he wasn’t a threat to me, more a nuisance. Also a person had to do something really bad to get me cross, and I rarely lost my temper, because manners were important. Still, the fact that I’d stayed calm in the face of all that provocation must have upset Gatlin, because he fired another volley of spit my way.
The second attack focused my mind even more. My brain quickly did some maths: ‘Now, he’s running 10.10 seconds max this year,’ I thought. ‘I’m running 9.60, and he thinks I’m gonna be scared because he’s spitting in my lane? Wow, he must be the dumbest kid in the world.’
Right then, I knew I wasn’t going to lose. The only questions bouncing through my mind were, ‘How fast am I going to run? And how much am I going to win this race by?’
The next time I caught Gatlin’s eye was when the race was over. I’d crossed the line in first place and, as I looked back, I could see him five metres behind. There was nothing more to say; the spitting and the staring down were done. I’d dished out a little bit of whoop-ass, Pops-style. Still, that didn’t stop the hype and, shortly before London 2012, Gatlin started talking to reporters again.
‘[People] have watched The Bolt Show for a couple of years and they want to see someone else in the mix as well. I’m glad to come up and step up and take charge with that.’
I guess maybe I’d looked off form to him, especially after the Jamaica trials and Ostrava. The thing with Gatlin was that he was a bit like me, he was crazy competitive. Well, that’s what Coach thought anyway. ‘You are the two people that step up with it comes to The Big Occasion,’ he said.
Whatever. To me, Gatlin was an inconvenience before the Olympics and I was going to beat him.
The main thing for me was that I felt strong in the heats. I could push myself without fear of injury in every race and I was sharp for the first 60 metres. After that I’d shut the competition off without too much trouble in the 100, and it was the same in the 200. More importantly, I’d also stopped stressing about my starts. My confidence was through the roof.
Blake’s confidence was also high, maybe too high. On the first day of heats I’d cruised through a qualifier for the 100 metres. A few minutes earlier Blake had won his race, too, and as I walked into the stadium I could see him in the crowd ahead of me.
Journalists and broadcasters had gathered around him in the mixed zone, an area where the press were allowed to put questions to the athletes. They were coming for me, too. Microphones and cameras pointed from all corners.
As I wandered along the line of interviewers, chatting, word of Blake’s self-belief started coming down the line. He was a few metres away, speaking to some writers, but he was saying way too much.
A tape recorder got pushed into my face. ‘Usain, Yohan just said that he had been nervous for the 100 metres heats,’ shouted a journalist. ‘But he thinks it’ll be a different matter in the 200.’
Oh really? That sounded like a challenge to me, like he was saying he was going to win the 200 metres final. I didn’t think too much of it, though. I figured Blake might have been misquoted, so I left it at that. I also knew that he was confident and because of his age he didn’t always put that confidence across very well. But I heard it again. And again.
Then somebody spelt it out to me in plain English: ‘He said you’re not going to win the 200 – he is.’
I smiled to myself. ‘Why do people keep doing this?’ I thought. ‘Why do people keep underestimating me like I’m just another athlete, like I’m a nobody? I give everyone else respect. But am I the only one who gives respect here? First Gatlin, and now this? It’s going from bad to worse …’
I decided to make a stand – I called Blake out. An Olympic volunteer was standing behind me holding a microphone, which I knew was connected to a set of loudspeakers. There was always one lying around at press events. The organisers used them to chat to the athletes and media representatives as a group. Spotting my chance, I made a grab for the mic.
‘Yo, Yohan Blake,’ I said, my voice booming around the mixed zone.
He turned around, and I stared him in the eyes and laughed.
‘Yohan Blake,’ I repeated. ‘You will not beat me in the 200 metres.’
He smiled nervously. He could tell that I was slightly upset, despite the smiles. I didn’t want to argue with Blake, because he was a team-mate, and a nice guy, so I kept it friendly. I hated the idea of causing problems with fellow Jamaicans, least of all him, but my resolve had toughened right then.
OK, whatever, Blake. I’m going to beat you …
* It had been pretty funny, though. I hadn’t been convinced that taking up a sport like golf was a good idea at first, because I didn’t do anything unless I was going to win, and I couldn’t see myself as the next Tiger Woods. Anyway, I’d ignored my better judgement and agreed to play at a fancy Jamaican course. NJ said it would be ‘fun’, plus I had a lot of fancy equipment to try out, so I walked on to the first tee looking like Rory McIlroy, but without the curly hair – I had my golf shoes on, a smart polo shirt, tailored shorts, the clubs, the bag, the trolley. I even had a golf glove. I looked like a pro. Then I scared the parrots away by driving a ball straight into the woods.
‘What the hell is this?’ I thought. ‘That wasn’t supposed to happen!’
I picked another ball from my bag and stepped back on to the tee, though this time I fired my shot into a pond on the other side of the fairway. That I really couldn’t understand because I’d taken the liberty of visiting a driving range in the morning to warm up. There, I’d hit straight drive after straight drive. But the minute I started playing for serious, everything fell apart. There was no ‘fun’. I lost seven balls in the first half-hour, and after the fifth hole I figured, ‘To hell with this, I’m going home.’ I walked off the course and slammed those expensive clubs into the boot of my car. They haven’t been used since.
† I had no personal issue with Gatlin’s return to the sport. When he came back from his four-year ban, I didn’t cuss. If the IAAF felt it was OK for him to race again, then who was I to complain? He’d served his time and I just wanted to work my hardest so I could beat him. I was good to run against anybody, I was confident in myself.
Friends always said to me, ‘What if somebody had beaten you and they were on drugs?’
My response was always to say that I didn’t care. If I lost to someone, whatever – I’d work harder to beat them the next next time around. But if that person had doped, then he would know the truth deep down – Usain’s better than me. That’s the way I looked at things. I was happy, running free with a good, clean conscience. But if I had been him, I wouldn’t have done so much talking.
I’ve learned to read the emotions of an opponent. It’s an important skill, like a card player checking out his rivals to see if they’re holding a good hand, or bluffing. In a split second I can spot a flicker of fear, a worry, some stress. It’s usually found in the eyes. But sometimes I know whether I have to worry about an athlete (or not) by the way he walks around the call room, or how he prepares himself on the start line.
When I walked to the track for the 100 metres final, I made a quick look across the lanes to the other athletes. Cameras flashed, a crazy buzz of excitement burned around the stadium as everyone waited for the starter’s gun. The energy seemed to ping off the ground like sparks. I could feel my muscles tensing.
I checked left, then right. Everyone was stretching into their start positions – Gatlin and Tyson, Asafa and Blake – and I could see who was worried by the pressure and who wasn’t. Tyson and Gatlin were fine, but then I knew nerves had never really bothered Gatlin; Tyson had been in great form during the build-up to London and must have felt confident.
It was the Jamaicans who seemed unsure. Asafa looked a little nervous – the same old story as before. But Blake appeared stressed too, and that was the strangest thing to me. The confidence he’d shown in those interviews had faded. I’d first spotted his mood change earlier that evening when we had been working together on the warm-up track. He had been sitting around, relaxing, probably way too much. He wasn’t preparing as intensively as he should have been, and I knew that if a runner stopped moving before a big final then the nerves could set in, his legs might start shaking. Over-thinking the scale of a prize and what was going to happen in a major final was a bad way for any athlete to prepare. It was self-destructive.
I didn’t want that to affect Blake. Despite our rivalry, we were friends and team-mates – Racers. Besides, I wanted to beat him at his very best. I tried to fire him up.
‘Yo, you should do some more warm-up sprints,’ I shouted as Eddie stretched me out.
He sat down on the track and shook his head. ‘I’m OK,’ he said.
I wasn’t convinced. ‘You sure?’
‘Yeah!’
‘A’ight, dawg,’ I thought. ‘It’s on you. If you’re OK, you’re OK …’
I could tell he didn’t want to listen to me anymore. I guess he might have been thinking, ‘What the hell? Why is this guy helping me?’ Maybe he didn’t trust my motives. Still, he should have known me better. I was genuine and wanted the best for him. Just as I’d given Asafa a brief boost of confidence before the Olympic final in Beijing, so I was trying to help Blake.
I knew why he was nervous: the Olympic stage was huge. Sure, his winning the World Champs had been big, but the Games in London were a step up and the size of the event often played on an athlete’s mind. I’ve said it to people all the time: ‘Yeah, it’s easy to compete with yourself, but when you line up with the best sprinters in the world, life gets a little tougher. The top guns are on that Olympic start line and one slip means you’re not getting a medal. If you don’t get your s**t together, you’re going home empty-handed.’
I could tell that the same realisation was dawning on Blake, but if the kid didn’t want my help, then so be it. I left him to work through it on his own.
Regardless of who was mentally ready and who wasn’t, I was glad that the starting line-up was strong. I knew there couldn’t be a repeat of ’08 when fans pointed to Tyson’s absence as the reason for my gold medals. This time there would be no ‘buts’, no ‘maybes’. Instead, when I looked across the lanes, everybody who was anybody in sprinting was there. I was battling against the best, which m
eant I could erase all the doubts about my ability and prove that I was The Man, the Number One athlete in track and field.
But suddenly I got hit by a little worry of my own. It came out of the blue: three stupid words I’d thought were gone for good, flashing across my mind; a dangerous reminder of what had happened before.
‘Don’t false start …’ it said. ‘Don’t false start …’
It was crazy. The stress was still there! The memory of Daegu had reared up at the worst possible time.
‘Oh God, why are you thinking about that now? Come on man, get over it!’
As I refocused, I remembered Coach’s words again.
‘Yeah, that’s right, Bolt. Just chill.’
Then I heard another voice, but this time it was echoing around the Olympic Stadium.
‘On your marks …’
The crowd quietened down, people started to whisper. A call of ‘Ssshhhhh!’ hissed around the seats and blew across the track like a cold wind. I dropped to my knees, crossed myself and said a little prayer to the heavens.
Please give me the strength to go out there and do what I have to do …
Another call. ‘Get set …’
Don’t false start …
Bang!
I moved after the ricochet of the pistol, and as my body rose I quickly assessed the situation. There had been no early reaction. Cool, you’re on point. It’s go time …
I could always tell instantly whenever I’d made a great start or not. If it was good, the push felt smooth, the muscles were strong and power pumped through my legs. It was like an explosion away from the blocks. But the perfect start in a competitive race happened rarely, maybe once every couple of years. If a start was bad, I always felt awful. Limp. Weak. There was no energy whatsoever.
As I leapt from the line, I knew my push had been bad, but when I looked up at the pack, I realised that Gatlin had made one of the best starts I’d ever seen in my life. It was powerful and sleek, and I could not work out for the life of me how he had moved away so quickly. I saw him take two steps before I’d even taken one and as he tore off down the track, I thought I was seeing things.