HHHMMM…THAT SHOULD BE BOLT AS IN USAIN, NOT BOL AS IN MANUTE 
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guardian.co.uk Usain Bolt
Big interview: Usain Bolt
Usain Bolt warns the world’s sprinters that the best is yet to comeThe fastest man in the world has set his sights on Michael Johnson’s 300m record
(25)Tweet this (23)Donald McRae The Guardian, Tuesday 30 March 2010 Article history
Usain Bolt finds some new friends on a Jamaica beach. Photograph: Karen Fuchs
The World’s Fastest Man ambled into a heaving club called Fiction in Kingston, Jamaica, just after 2.30 last Sunday morning.
Usain Bolt showed none of the blistering speed which has made him an outrageous phenomenon. The Olympic and world champion in both the 100m and 200m, who has swept aside preconceptions about how fast a human might run, strolled through the booming waves of sound so coolly he might have been on his way to pick up an early edition of the Sunday Gleaner.
Yet Bolt is no old-fashioned newspaper man. He is a chattering dynamo, a 23-year-old as keen to light up the track with the latest Jamaican dance hall moves as he is intent on shredding sporting history. Wearing his sprinting supremacy lightly, in a gesture of winning nonchalance, Bolt also provided an object lesson in how best to deflect the modern curse of celebrity. The Kingston clubbers offered their hero the space he needed to be himself.
Near the ladies’ toilets Bolt danced as much as he liked, to a playlist spanning shuddering dance hall, conventional R&B, kitsch 90s pop and even, at some murky point after 4am, Nirvana’s Smells Like Teen Spirit. Bolt, by then, had slipped back into the fading darkness, driving a suitably fast car to his condo high up on the hill overlooking the National Stadium.
That afternoon, soon after three on Hellshire Beach, 45 minutes out of town, he looked relaxed. “I still go to the Quad,” he said of the club which he had made famous in 2008. Having shocked the world at the Beijing Olympics, Bolt announced his wish to be transported from the Bird’s Nest Stadium to the Quad in Kingston. “But I enjoy it at Fiction too,” he said. “It’s sort of middle-class but I like going there. And of course I know all the DJs. When they come to the end of the night they let me mess around sometimes. But I’m only in practice as a DJ.”
Inside a tin beach-shack at the un-touristy Hellshire Bolt revelled in his Jamaican life. “Last night was typical,” he said. “Most people know I’m there. But they also know I go to the clubs a lot, so they’re relaxed. They’re used to me in Kingston.”
He could also enjoy the prospect of returning to the competitive track for the first time since, at the World Championships in Berlin last August, he lowered his 100m and 200m world records to the startling times of 9.58 and 19.19sec. “But this year, without a world championships or Olympics, might be more difficult,” Bolt said. "You can slack off because you don’t have to worry so much. But I have to try and stay on top because I owe it to my sponsors, Puma, who stuck by me when I was young and had some injuries. I also owe it the fans because they come out to see me win.
“I’m now on a six-week programme to get into shape because my main goal is to stay unbeaten this year. I saw [fellow Jamaican] Asafa Powell in training and he’s looking good. But this year I want to take it as easy as possible. Of course, if I need to run as fast as 9.5 to stay unbeaten I have to do it. But if I just have to run 9.9 to win every race, then that’s what I want – because next year is different. I have to get back to 9.5 next year.”
Bolt’s words sounded ridiculously laid-back until he said he had not ever really tried as hard as he could in the 100 metres: “The best is still to come. I’ve never run just straight and focused on getting to the finish line. I’m always looking over at the other guys to see where they are. So one day, if I can stay focused and run really fast right through, then I could do it.”
How fast might Bolt run the 100m when, finally, he puts his mind fully to the task? “I think the record is going to end up at 9.4 something and then it’s going to be stuck there a long time. It will be hard to break. But you never really know. Anything is possible.”
Such conviction underlined Bolt’s psychological hold over his rivals: “I definitely think so. When I was coming up, and watching Asafa break record after record, I used to say, ‘Oh no, I don’t want to be racing him.’ So now, for me, I think it’s a definite psychological advantage going into a race against these guys.”
Bolt has even offered Powell, his closest competitor, a form of counselling. "I’ve said to him he shouldn’t stress too much or worry about the crowd. I’m always telling him this – you’ve got to do this for yourself first. If you do it well, then people will love you.
"When I broke Asafa’s 100m world record [in May 2008] he said the pressure was off him. But I don’t think the pressure is ever off if you’re one of the top athletes. People are always going to be looking for you – especially if someone takes your record. They want to see if you can reclaim it. He said the pressure was less but I don’t think he acted like that. If the pressure is off, you just need to relax and have fun.
“Asafa’s a great athlete. I keep telling him this. He’s one of the only guys out there who could beat me because he’s tall and powerful and he has a lot of strength. So if he gets it right, and Asafa also starts running 9.5, it’s going to be huge.”
The previous afternoon, while Bolt rested at home, Powell had been the star attraction at the National Stadium. Powell’s own condo adjoins Bolt’s – as if to prove their close friendship. And it was touching to see the more complex character send 30,000 people into raptures at the Puma-funded Jamaican Schools Championships. Powell ran the last leg of a torch relay, celebrating the centenary of the ferociously competitive Champs, in an amusing mock weave.
Afterwards he stopped to talk. Powellsaid he and Bolt were “country boys” – but that Powell’s school had been so small he had competed only once at Champs. “And I got disqualified that time,” he said, smiling. “Usain was younger than me but he was always abig deal at Champs. That helped him because, for us, after the Olympics and Worlds, Champs is the next big thing. Usain learnt quickly how to handle pressure.”
While he waits for Powell’s renewed challenge, Bolt plans on breaking Michael Johnson’s 10-year-old world record for the rarely run 300m in May. “It should be good,” he said, “but we’re not trying to overdo it this year.”
At Hellshire Bolt leaned back in his chair in the sand and grinned. With his friend Colin Jackson, Britain’s former world champion hurdler, joining the beach party, he was more specific in detailing his feelings about the 2012 Olympics which will be given added spice by the city’s large Jamaican population.
“Oh man, I’m so excited,” Bolt said. "I’ve been telling people it’s going to be nerve-racking if you’re not mentally prepared. If you’re not ready for that, then don’t go. Jamaicans are loud – very loud. They’re not like other crowds who just sit around. And they don’t just cheer after the race. They cheer before the race and then they go crazy. So that’s why I’m looking forward to London.
“I’m a performer. People love me and I love the crowd. My one friend’s got a talk that always make me laugh. He says: ‘When you see me on the street it’s not for the cameras, it’s for the people. And when you see me on the track it’s not for the people, it’s for the camera.’ It’s all fun. People are saying now, ‘I’m trying to get my ticket for 2012, I’m trying this or that.’ I just pray they have enough space in London for all the people who are going to be there.”
Bolt’s enthusiasm for the Olympics obliterated the usual platitudes of taking one race at a time. “2012 is one thing I’m thinking about always. It’s not even the fact that it’s the Olympics – it’s the crowd. The crowd is going to be just wonderful and I think it’ll probably be one of the best Olympics ever.” Does Bolt have any extended family in London? “I don’t know right now – but, you watch, they will come out!”
At the last Olympics he prepared for the blazing brilliance of his 100m by eating two portions of chicken nuggets on the day of the final. Would he repeat the trick in 2012? “No. There should be good food in London. In China I wasn’t sure. I decided, you know what, I’m going to focus on chicken nuggets because there’s no messing there.”
Far less entertainingly, Bolt’s track exploits aroused suspicion they might be chemically enhanced. But, after two years of sustained achievement, and with a greater understanding of his astonishing speed as a teenager over 200m, did Bolt feel the world now believed he was a natural force rather a drug-cheat? He laughed. “I think you’ve got to give them a couple more years. Jamaican people know we’re clean but we have to convince the rest of the world. All I can do is continue running fast. But other guys have been cheating over the years – so I know where [the doubt] is coming from”.
He can, though, now claim to be drug-tested more than any other athlete. “They come when they feel like it,” he said of the testers. “In January they bombarded me for two weeks – every single day they were at my house. And then I don’t see them for one month. Then all of a sudden they’re back again. So you just never know when they’re coming.”
In person, seeing how his 6ft 5in height lends him a seven-foot stride at top speed, meaning he can cover the 100m in 41 steps, five fewer than Powell, it is easier to suspend disbelief. Bolt also seems devoid of sporting demons. He smiled at the suggestion that his gruff coach, Glen Mills, provided the gravitas to offset Bolt’s goofball character.
“For you guys the coach is hard. He doesn’t like the media. But we laugh every day. He gives us a programme and I try to get out of it and so we’re always laughing. He’s not like a guy who hits down with the hammer all the time. If you know what you need to do, it’s all fun with him.”
There was more fun, though, on Hellshire Beach. Before he entertained an amazed group of kids, Bolt revealed plans for his next victory jig. “I love taking dances from Jamaica and putting it out to the world. Things change so quickly so it could be different by the time I run again but, right now, you’ve got the Rubber-Bounce. People love that dance so you’re probably going to see that one.”
Bolt might even unleash the Rubber-Bounce should Manchester United win a title race that appears to be causing him anxiety more than any Olympic or world championship sprint. “It’s been nerve-racking,” he said of the Premier League battle. “Chelsea scored seven [against Aston Villa last Saturday] but then we got back four [at Bolton]. We’re leading by one point and so I think it’s going to be all right.”
A long way from Old Trafford, Bolt reflected on the way his world had changed over the last two years. “My life is much better financially but, most of all, it’s been extremely fun. The only hard thing is that I’ve had to change my lifestyle a bit. I try not to go out so much and I can’t do certain things now. But it’s not so bad. I still drink my Guinness. I don’t drink vodka or anything else. Just Guinness.”
Yesterday afternoon Bolt put aside his Guinness, the beach and even his dancehall steps. He went back to serious work on a grassy training track in Kingston. It was enough to frighten his bravest rivals as, dreaming of dancing in London on an Olympic night in 2012,The World’s Fastest Man sped away into the shimmering distance. No one could catch him.