Usain Bolt sets sights on 400m
By Mike Hurst
May 29, 2009 12:00am
IS USAIN “Lightning” Bolt the greatest sprinter ever? Is he better than Jesse Owens, Carl Lewis and Michael Johnson?
The question has hung around his neck like the Olympic medals he won in Beijing last year: three races, three golds and three world records.
Owens in 1936, Bobby Morrow in 1956 and Lewis in 1984 each won three gold medals in the 100m, 200m and 4x100m but did not set three world records in the process.
And no man has set world records at 100m, 200m and 400m. But Bolt has the opportunity to hold all three sprint world records simultaneously if he attacks the 400m.
Michael Johnson set the 400m record of 43.18sec but some, including Jamaica’s 400m record-holder Bert Cameron, believe Bolt could run 42.5sec.
“My coach wants me to step up to the 400m next season and I think that’s what will happen,” Bolt said this week in Manchester, where he wrecked the world record for 150m by clocking 14.35sec in the wet and 12C temperatures.
"The 100m will suffer because it would be difficult to do all three, the 100, 200 and 400. But it doesn’t matter that I may lose the title of the fastest man in the world because I want the 400m world record.
“It’s the right thing to do at this stage in my career because I want to become a legend, I want to become the first athlete to hold the world record at 100, 200 and 400.”
But wait. False start. One more untruth and you’re disqualified. What about the Aussie girls? Bolt has already lost that race to Aussie greats Betty Cuthbert and Marlene Mathews, as well as Poland’s Irena Szewinska and three English ladies.
Matthews set the first official 440-yard world record (57.0sec) in Sydney in 1957 and ran world records for 100 yards (10.4sec and 10.3sec) and 220 yards (23.4sec) in 1958.
Cuthbert set a 200m world record (23.2sec) in Sydney in 1956, ran 100-yard world record twice (10.4sec) in 1958 and took the 440-yard record down to 55.6sec and then 54.3sec in Sydney in 1959, before setting 400m records of 53.5sec in 1963 and 52.01sec to win Olympic gold in Tokyo in 1964.
If the IAAF and IOC were smart they should already be talking to Bolt’s coach Glen Mills about what it would take in terms of the program to entice his protege to attempt the treble in London 2012.
Coincidentally, Bolt’s Jamaican compatriot, the late Herb McKenley, topped the world rankings for 100m, 200m and 400m in 1947. No one has done that since. Now there’s a challenge worthy of the man who would be the greatest sprinter of all time.