Changing China
Giant on the move
Three golds, three world records
OK, it’s not Michael Phelps territory, but Usain Bolt clinched his third gold medal and third world record from three events when Jamaica won the 4x100m relay on Friday.
Bolt teamed up with Nesta Carter, Michael Frater and Asafa Powell to clock a time of 37.10 seconds and take 0.30 seconds off the 15-year-old record set by the United States at the 1993 world championships.
There was disappointment for Jamaica, however, when their women’s relay team were disqualified for messing up the second changeover between Sherone Simpson and Kerron Stewart.
Still, five out of six ain’t bad.
PHOTO: Usain Bolt of Jamaica (back) urges on his team mate Asafa Powell during their men’s 4 x 100m relay final of the athletics competition in the National Stadium at the Beijing 2008 Olympic Games August 22, 2008. REUTERS/David Gray
Is this the most fun you can have on two legs?
Jamaica’s sprinters have pulled off a remarkable trick at the Beijing Games by making running look like the most enjoyable thing you can do standing up.
While speedsters from other nations have looked tense on the track at the Bird’s Nest, Usain Bolt and the women who swept the medals in the 100 metres have clearly been enjoying themselves.
Bolt in particular had the look about him of a Brazilian footballer in the 1970s, toying with the opposition, or West Indies cricketer Viv Richards clattering all comers around the ground.
Here’s what Tyson Gay said about Bolt’s 100m victory celebrations in an interview in Time magazine:
The guy is young. And he’s always joking, playing, never taking anything too seriously. You’ve gotta have fun. Obviously, people have just never seen anyone win by such a margin, or celebrate like that in the 100.
Who wouldn’t want to emulate runners like Bolt, whatever Jacques Rogge might think? We should therefore expect a whole new generation of Jamaican runners to come through. My colleague Simon Evans takes a closer look at that prospect here.
PHOTO: Usain Bolt celebrates winning the men’s 200m final, August 20, 2008. REUTERS/Mike Blake
Usain Bolt’s Performance
Sports is all about the spectacular and the spectacle.. All sports need the flamboyant player or athlete.. As sports enthusiasts, we do not stay up all night to watch (on TV) or pay our hard earned money to go to games just to see someone run or jump or kick a ball. Sporting events are much more than that.
I wonder who is the present World Heavyweight Boxing Champion? Well, most of my friends, who are all sports enthusiasts, do not know and are not bothered that they do not know. Now why is that so? I assure you, that when Mohammed Ali was the World Heavyweight Champion, the entire world knew, and the world cared one way or the other… I WONDER AGAIN, WHAT BOXING WOULD HAVE BEEN LIKE WITHOUT THE FLAMBOYANCY OF A MOHAMMED ALI.
!!!! “I am the greatest”!!!! “I am the greatest”!!!!!
Very soon the games of the 29th Olympiad will be vague in our collective memories. It is the outstanding performers and their performances, the spectacle of the games that will remain in our memories.. The sport should embrace these show-men and show-women. Their impact on the sport, in terms of generating interest in the sport, fan involvement, attracting young people to the sport and television “viewership” etc goes far beyond just running and jumping.
Our IOC president has not yet appreciated the impact of these personalities on the sport.
Norman W. Haughton
Kingston Jamaica
Clean sweep in the sprints — it’s the Jamaica Olympics
Congratulations to Jamaica for completing a clean sweep in the men’s and women’s sprints at the Beijing Games on Thursday.
Veronica Campbell-Brown surged to 200 metres victory on Thursday, making it four golds from the four individual events and shutting out the U.S. for the first time since they boycotted the Moscow Olympics in 1980.
According to Kerron Stewart, who finished third in the 200m to win a bronze medal to add to the silver she claimed in the 100m, the Jamaicans are taking over.
“We’ve been saying it but I don’t think anyone’s been taking us seriously. I guess they are now,” said the 24-year-old. ”When you put Jamaicans in an environment like this, only good things will happen.
“I think as a team we’re dominating the sport. The Americans have dominated (in the past), but this Olympics has been a Jamaican Olympics.”
Usain Bolt, who turned 22 on Thursday, set the tone with victory in the 100m on Saturday and followed it up with a second gold and a second world record in the 200 on Wednesday.
Rogge prefers his athletes scared stiff, like the under-age Chinese gymnasts.
Lightning Bolt strikes again — your views
Jamaica’s Usain Bolt completed a breathtaking sprint double at the Beijing Games on Wednesday, breaking the 200 metres world record that many had thought unbreakable to take his second Olympic gold medal.
The contrast between this and his winning run in the 100 could hardly have been more marked, as this time he gave it everything he had to go under the old best mark, Michael Johnson’s 19.32, by two hundredths of a second.
While Bolt had ambled through the final quarter of the 100, and easily lowered the world record to 9.69, this time he was grimacing with effort as he made for the finish.
There was no one within two, three metres of him as he dipped for the line, glanced over at the clock and leapt with joy as the clock stopped at 19.31.
That was soon rounded down to 19.30 – a mark that will surely not be bettered, certainly by no one else, for a long time to come.
It completed an incredible sprint double for the world’s fastest man and cast an indelible mark on the Olympics. None of us in the 91,000 crowd at the Bird’s Nest will forget it.
What did you make of his performance? What does it mean for Jamaica?
on the biggest sporting stage Bolt delivered, big time. An absolutely incredible performance, the 200m world record, has a new worthy custodian.
When is a false start not a false start?
I knew something was up when an official abruptly announced that the women’s 100 metres final news conference had been postponed.
Comments made by the two American sprinters on their way off the track had already rung an alarm bell.
“Man, I swear somebody jumped, someone got out before the gun. I’ve never had a bad start like that, ever,” said Muna Lee, who took fifth place. Torri Edwards, who came at the back of the field, admitted: “I think I moved a bit there at the start, and I thought they would call it. I think I false-started, I moved a little bit — my foot. There was no call back so I went.”
Sure enough, the Americans appealed against the result of the race, in which Jamaica had taken a clean sweep of the medals, claiming there had been a false start.
For 20 tense minutes it looked like the blue riband event of the evening might have to be re-run, until word came through that the International Association of Athletics Federations had rejected the Americans’ appeal.
Why, if even one of the Jamaican medallists said she had noticed the false start, did the appeal fail?
A false start is declared when an athlete moves any part of his or her body prior to the sound of the starting gun while in ’set’ position. For races up to 400 metres, where hundredths of seconds make all the difference, electronic starting blocks are used to detect any pre-gun movement.
Bolt takes sprinting to a whole new level
Usain Bolt’s 100m triumph at the Bird’s Nest will surely be one of those sporting moments that stay in the collective memory for decades.
As anyone who was there, or who saw the TV pictures, will attest, Bolt could have put in an even quicker time than his new world record of 9.69 seconds, had he not started celebrating with 20 metres to go (it’s down to yam power, according to his family).
Yet it was his supreme confidence, bordering on arrogance, in milking the moment that made it such a memorable run.
Arms outstretched, face turned to the crowd, with 10 metres to go, Bolt knew that no-one was going to catch him and he could take a good look around as he made history. He carried on sprinting way past the finish line and the first quarter of his victory lap was almost a taster of what is to come when he runs in 200 metres.
He didn’t stop running until he spotted some Jamaican fans in the crowd, so easily identifiable in those vibrant yellow shirts with that magnificently proud flag, and went in for a hug.
After Michael Phelps pushed the limits of swimming to a new level this week now the track and field section of the Games has started with an astonishing performance which we will see replayed on our television screens countless times in the next week and beyond.
I first saw Bolt at the Jamaican national championships, the island’s Olympic trials, back in June. Despite the presence of his rival Asafa Powell in the same 100 metres race, he eased off and virtually jogged over the finish line, leaving some of the fastest men in world athletics panting behind.
Jamaicans show how to relax ahead of the Games
My colleague Balazs Koranyi blogged yesterday about how hard it is for athletes in the build-up to the Games, when their preparations are pretty much complete and there’s too much sit and think.
Well, maybe not every athlete. The Jamaican track and field team had no qualms about letting their hair down and showing off their considerable assets at a pre-Games party this week.
The coaches, physios and psychologists were forgotten for a while as most of the squad were squeezed into a Beijing Jazz club on the eve of Jamaican Independence Day. And if anyone doubted that muscles could be sexy, they should have been there.
A group of local women set the scene when they whipped off their traditional masks and long silk gowns to deliver a raunchy display that left the movie Dirty Dancing resembling a church picnic. Not to be outdone, hurdler Shevon Stoddart and long jumper Chelsea Hammond joined them while modelling their new track outfits.
Decathlete Maurice Smith then went through his “Mr Universe” poses, a skin-tight suit amplifying his formidable physique, while 100 metres world record holder Usain Bolt finished things off by joining the band for an impromptu reggae jamming session.
The whole thing was performed to a background of delirious young girl fans, a mass of media cameras, and two security men whose dour glares never faltered, even when the whooping was taking place inches from their faces.
Prime Minister Bruce Golding chipped in with a good luck message by video link and the group went off into the night all smiles and excitement ahead of what, for most of them, will be the biggest adventure of their lives.
That’s the Jamaican spirit. Big up to the athletes. Make jamaica proud. zeen.
i agree wholeheartedly with “Asher”. Phelp’s cause was assisted by having events closely stacked together- and the fact that if you view history, there’s been a whole bunch of repeat champs and multiple event winners and medalists throughout swimming- due to the nature of the sport. if there was a 80,120,140,160 and 180m sprint and a 4×100, 4×200 and 4xmedley in t&f then usain wouldve won a load too.
Phelp’s effort was great no doubt, but the chasm between Bolt, and the fact that every human born attempts to run fast, puts him in a much tougher grade. Bolt’s performances- even prior to the games put him at the number one athletic freak spot. Phelps is clearly second.