Usain Bolt lies panting on a rundown track in Kingston. Sweating hard, under a moody Jamaican sky, cubes of red asphalt stick to his bare flesh. He pulls a face. The world’s greatest sprinter has never liked training; even the rewards of winning three gold medals in Beijing have not changed that.
Bolt’s season starts next month, at the Jamaica Invitational, and his training is already behind schedule. There are medals to be won in Berlin, at the world championships this summer, and coach Glen Mills will not let anything stand in the way. Can he go home yet? Mills shakes his head. Bolt has just completed five 180m drills – his best 19.6sec – on what is designated an “easy” day. On a tough day he is expected to break 18sec. Mills is a difficult man to impress.
“Every race I ran I thought it was the perfect race,” Bolt says, “then coach Mills told me ‘no’. When I ran a world record the first time I was like: ‘Yeah coach you see that, that’s a good record,’ but that was no good. Even in the Olympics I was like: ‘Start was good, no?’ He was like, ‘no’. Every time I think I do something great he tells me I have more to do. Sometimes it’s like …” the 22-year-old struggles to find the words. “That’s just the coach I guess.”
When Bolt stunned the world with three gold medals and three world records at the Beijing Olympics last summer, those watching could not believe how easy he made it look. But four years earlier, when Bolt first started working with Mills, things were not so easy. With his professional career flagging, the critics were gathering.
As a junior he had been sensational, the youngest ever world junior champion – over 200m in 2002 – he ran 19.93 to break the world junior record in 2004 and set up expectations for the Olympic Games that summer. But there were underlying problems – poor technique and repeated injuries. Bolt was born with scoliosis, a curvature of the lower spine, and the increased workload was playing havoc with his hamstrings.
“It never bothered me as a kid,” Bolt says. “It was only when I turned professional. My first year it went crazy because of the work and the pressure it was under. I started pulling my hamstrings and then I got checked out with x-rays and they told me the problem. They said it was scoliosis. I now have to do back exercises three times a week to get my strength on.”
Bailing out in round one of his first Olympic Games with an injury was met by fierce criticism from the Jamaican media. “Jamaicans wanted someone who could get them a sprint title,” says Norman Peart, manager and mentor to Bolt since he was a 15-year-old schoolboy, and a full time tax auditor. "People were saying he was faking those injuries. They were very cruel, you know, at the age of 18 [as he was then]. They said he failed, he’s faking, he’s giddy headed, he’s partying too much.
“The minute he was at a club one night they’d say he’s there all week, they’d say he’s drinking. You know in your teenage years you have a bottle of Guinness, they’d say he’s had a crate.”
Mills changed the programme. A specialist was brought on board to work on Bolt’s back, his training regime became a lot tougher and there was a new focus on improving Bolt’s technique. In the 2007 world championships his young charge won two silver medals. “My coach is like a second father to me,” Bolt says. “He pretty much took me from being really injured to being the champion I am today. We had a plan when we started, we said two years to try and build it up and take it from there. He got me to where I am now.”
With a year to go before the Beijing Olympics, Bolt was still a 200m specialist. Paradoxically, it was his reluctance to train for a longer event – the 400m – that convinced Mills to let him try the 100m. At a small international meet in Crete, in 2007, Bolt made his senior 100m debut and ran 10.03. By May the following year he had honed that down to 9.76 and then a new world record that month in New York: 9.72. In less than a year Bolt had eclipsed the achievements of his friend and team-mate, Asafa Powell. It is an incredible feat and yet, according to Mills, there is much more to do.
“He still wants me to work on my technique,” Bolt says. “He really wants me to get quicker, that’s why he’s told me to work on my first 30m. My top speed kicks in at 40-50m, if I correct that I’ll reach my top speed faster.”
It is significant that the one aspect of Bolt’s life that Mills, a renowned disciplinarian, has not changed is his appetite for partying. Jamaican TV pundit Oral Tracey, among many others, continues to rail against the late nights Bolt spends dancing in the Quad – the athlete’s favourite Kingston nightclub. But those around him refuse to take issue with it. “He partied last year and look at his results, how can you argue?” says Peart. “You saw him Saturday night, he arrived at the Quad at 2am and left at 5am. That’s only three hours.” Peart grins at the logic.
Those who know him best say that partying is synonymous with Bolt. His Olympic gold medal celebrations, the dancehall moves nuh linga and gully creeper, are as famous as the performances that won him those victories. Even as a youngster at the Champs – the Jamaican national schools championships – Bolt was known to salute the crowd. The “party” is what helps him to relax.
Back home in Jamaica, Bolt’s father could not share his relaxed approach. Wellesley, who dislikes flying, had not travelled to Beijing and instead called his son ahead of the 100m final. “My dad he was nervous man,” Bolt says. “He was like: ‘Yo, you not worried? We worried down here.’ I was like: ‘Why you worried? I’m the one running, you just watching. Come on!’ What you worried about?’” In the warm-up area, shortly before the 100m final, Bolt could be found rolling around on the floor playfighting with Peart.He refuses to worry about competing. “My philosophy is if I can run faster than you, you not going to beat me. If I have a bad day, yes, but if I have a good day no. I don’t see why I’ve got to worry about you when you’re slower than me,” he says.
Where does his confidence come from? Bolt says it was his experience of the 2002 world junior championships in Kingston that laid the “foundation” of his career. Competing in front of a home crowd, as a skinny 15-year-old, he was nervous as hell. “He didn’t want to go,” remembers his mother, Jennifer. “He cried he was so scared, so nervous. He was afraid to go up against the other boys who were bigger and more powerful than him. He was afraid to lose.”
Overcoming that fear to win gold, and two silver medals in the relays, proved a significant turning point. “World juniors made me who I am today,” he says. “It was one of the toughest races of my life up to this day. I was so nervous running in front of my home crowd. It’s on your mind that you’ve got to win for them. After running at the world juniors and then going somewhere else to run in front of people you don’t know, come on, that’s going to be easy.”
If only Powell could share his confidence. Instead anxiety seems to cripple the former world-record holder. “He puts too much pressure on himself,” Bolt says. "Over the years Asafa has been the top 100m guy, but every time he goes into a championship now he freaks out.
“If I had a house during the last world championships [2007] I would probably have lost it. Through the rounds Asafa looked so easy, he was smooth, I thought he can’t lose. If I’d had a house I would have bet that on the race, but he just lost it man. I actually lost $1,000.”
Powell’s coach has argued that he needs space away from the Jamaican national team during competitions, but Bolt rubbishes the theory. "I think that would be a stupid thing. I don’t think that’s going to help. You still got to face the guys on the track. Taking him away from people who can support him and help him…when you’re by yourself all you’re going to think about is the race. ‘How I’m going to do?’ When you’re around people it takes your mind off things, you relax."During the build-up to the 100m final in Beijing, the American sprinter Walter Dix tried to mess with Bolt’s head, a trick he will not try again in a hurry. “This is the first time I’ve ever said this,” says Bolt, leaning in confidentially, “but after the semi-finals he said to me: ‘There ain’t going to be no jogging in the final.’ I said: ‘What?’ Then I ran and I shut it down.” Bolt grins. Dix came away with a bronze medal, but one can only imagine how he felt watching Bolt “jog” those last 10m to claim victory and a world record in 9.69.
There are those who cannot believe what they saw that day. Carl Lewis is among the doubters, but Bolt refuses to be drawn into a debate. “I heard what he said. But it doesn’t matter what people say. A lot of these athletes are just jealous, I think, of people doing so well. This year I’ve been [drug] tested about four times. Last year it was about 30-40 times. They don’t ease up. Everywhere you go they have a representative there. I went to my aunt in Florida and they sent someone to test me there.”
Post-Beijing, Bolt has again struggled with his training. This time there have been even more distractions – talk shows, parties, and requests to meet everyone from Bill Clinton to Cristiano Ronaldo. Bolt says he lost his motivation to train until a chance conversation with an old friend made him realise he wanted to become a legend comparable to Tiger Woods or Magic Johnson. Behind the scenes his agents are working on a brand to take him to Beckham-esque levels, something no modern day track and field star has ever achieved. All Bolt has to do is keep on winning. As long as he can hack coach Mills’s training regime, the dream may not be as impossible as it sounds.
