Usain Bolt is trying a triple win in Rio. I've got the 100m on Sunday. Now he will also try the 200m and 4x100m in Games athlete, 29, says it will be his last.
The "distance" come a long way since it started running in Trelawney, Jamaica, and cried when he lost a race.
"He does not like to lose," said the father, Wellesley, BBC Sport.
With seven Olympic golds, 11 world titles and several records, it appears to have been much time for tears in your career.
"He was about five years old when he realized he was playing with his classmates and always won," says Jennifer. "He was always first. We realized it would be a great athlete."
In school
Later, in high school, Bolt had more interest in playing cricket to train in athletics track. He was "so in love" for the sport that "did not want to do anything else."
But a teacher of physical education, Lorna Thorpe, advised him to focus on athletics since he "had a gold mine in the legs."
And the champion today, very grateful for the teacher council.
"She's like a second mother to me," he says.
"When I was in high school she took care of me, making sure everything was ok, always focused. She had a very important role."
But the director at the time, Lorna Jackson, says she had to give advice to Bolt in another area: women.
She told Britain's Sunday Telegraph that Bolt was very close to a girl who helped in newsrooms.
"But then they said he had a girlfriend in a nearby school I told her:.! Do not write anything for him," he jokes.
She also taught Spanish to the athlete because I knew he "would travel a lot and need Spanish."
At 15, Bolt became "it" in the world of athletics to run the 200m at the World Junior in Jamaica in 2002 against men four years older.
He won and became the junior medalist newest history. Also won the "rising star" of Athletics Federations International Association.
American colleges rushed to offer scholarships to Bolt - and sports agents offered him contracts.
Irish Ricky Simms was a young agent who had just take one of the major sports companies in the world. He managed to sign with the Jamaican.
"After high school, Jamaican athletes constumam go to university in the United States and spend four years there before turning professional," said Simms. "But he decided to turn pro in 2003."
But the beginning of the professional life of Bolt was not so easy - sometimes the teenager was so nervous before races crying.
"When we spoke, he stopped crying and said, 'I'll do the best you can,'" said his mother, Jennifer, the American network CNN on the Junior championship 2002.
Inspiration
The future seemed to favor Justin Gatlin when the American sprinter, who had been suspended for doping, won the 100m at 22 in 2004 and the teenager Usain Bolt was eliminated in qualifying 200m.
But behold, at the 2008 Games in Beijing, Gatlin was in the middle of a four-year suspension for doping and Bolt had signed on the scene, destroying the time that the US had done in Athens and winning his first three gold medals .
Gatlin won bronze when Bolt defended his title in the 100m in London 2012, and the World last year rivalry of them was renewed when the Jamaican won the American by 0.01 seconds.
"He (Bolt) has proven that, when it is below, can give back up, and when it's over, he's on top," Gatlin told NBC. "It's the kind of person that makes you want to follow. He gave me a vision of where I need to be."
Their mothers met in the World in Beijing and are now friends.
Despite the rivalry on the track, the children also enjoy each other's company.
"We relax and have fun off the slopes, but when we stepped there, we want to win," said Gatlin.
The mentor
Jamaicans Bolt colleagues are neither in any way slow. Between 2005 and 2008, Asafa Powell broke the world record twice. But the former world champion Yohan Blake won silver in both the 100m and in the 200m in London in 2012 (and was fourth in Sunday's competition in Rio).
Although with Bolt they have more chances to win gold in the 4x100m relay, they know that the "distance" grasps all individual medals.
He was the first athlete to win gold medals in both the 100m and in the 200m and already has seven world titles since 2009, second only 100m 2011 when he was disqualified for a false start.
So will the teammates him feel threatened or frustrated because they can not win?
"It's good for the sport to have him, since he is the number 1 in the world and record," said Powell, who will not run in Rio. "We've been friends since before the world records and the Olympics. Nothing has changed, it just was much more famous. "
And when Powell finished a disappointing seventh in the World last year, Bolt sent a message of support.
"Strength, brother. People do not understand this way and sacrifice what we do," tweeted.
While Blake, three years younger than Bolt, came on the scene, the future Olympic champion already acted as mentor of his teenage prodigy.
Bolt watched as Blake won a youth race in Jamaica in 2008, telling the young newcomer to the group not to wear too much because "he still had a great career ahead."
Blake told Newsweek that he was surprised by Bolt know who he was. "I was very happy (with your advice)."
The jokester
Glen Mills was technical head of the national team of Jamaica for 22 years. He trained athletes who have earned more than 100 mundias championships and Olympic medals - favored number by Bolt's achievements.
After the disappointment in Olympic debut in Athens, Bolt turned to Mills and its more than 40 years of experience.
"It is a blessed athlete," said Mills to Speed Endurance. "When I started working with him, one of the things that stood out was his technique, very bad. He ran out of the center of balance. This caused a negative force affecting other areas."
"We started recording the training, to see in slow motion what he did. I drew diagrams to the positions that he should achieve," he said.
Determination of Bolt to improve eventually turning it into a global star, and he did it all with a smile on his face.
"He works very hard," said Mills British newspaper Evening Standard. "He mixes this with his jovial personality. But people need to know that it takes training and racing very seriously," he said.
And how compete with Bolt?
"We were amazed at what had happened," said Darvis Patton, 8 in Beijing, the Sports Illustrated on the night Bolt won his first Olympic gold and broke the world record on the way.
"The way (as a race). He ran 9.6 (seconds). And celebrating."
Marc Burns of Trinidad and Tobago, added: "I was getting ready to cross the finish line when I hear that noise and I see Bolt already on the other side, celebrating."
The future of the fastest man in the world
The Bolt family still lives in Trelawney, where his father still works in the local shop. The most famous son of the town is always welcome when you return.
His best friend Nugent Walker, says Bolt "never forgot where he came from." The idol Foundation offers bus and computers for his former school and paid for the reconstruction of a health center nearby.
"Jamaica has much basis for it," he adds. "His parents passed important values: respect people, caring for them He is very kind - even too kind, some would say.."
"I think he does not realize long been a star once in France, we went to a lobby (the hotel) and there were many people waiting outside he asked the doorman:.. 'Who are they waiting for?'. The doorman said, 'You.' "
His mother, Jennifer, says he spends a lot of time with the family when it is not running, but that retirement can bring a different situation.
"He will be able to come and go whenever you want," says Jennifer. "People always want to be near him, not to hurt him, but to be close."
She says he is still that same boy who won the junior championship in 2002 - and still listen to your parents.
But Wellesley, who takes credit for the child's dance steps, says that with the success he became "more an entertainer."
The mother would like him to turn an ambassador of the sport.
"It brings fun to the sport," he says. "Without him, who will take on this role? It'll be boring."
And on another member in the Bolt family? His parents say they are confident that they will be grandparents soon, but Bolt remains coy about the identity of the woman who has been dating for two years.
"That's why he wants to retire early," says the father. "He wants to make a family."
Nenhum comentário:
Postar um comentário