Reuters
Rio de Janeiro, August 20: Usain Bolt drew down the curtain on his brilliant Olympic career by securing a sweep of the sprint titles for a third successive Games when Jamaica successfully defended the 4×100 metres relay crown here Friday.
Two days shy of his 30th birthday, Bolt anchored his country to victory in 37.27 seconds so adding the relay crown to the 100 and 200 metres titles he has owned since exploding onto the Olympic stage in Beijing in 2008. The celebrations certainly will be huge after this momentous achievement.
He will depart that stage never having tasted defeat in a final, his nine gold medals a joint record in athletics with Finnish distance runner Paavo Nurmi and American sprinter and long jumper Carl Lewis.
In the eight years since Beijing, the 11-times World Champion has become one of the best known sportsmen on the planet and with the ‘triple-triple’ has a legitimate claim to the title of greatest Olympic track and field athlete ever.
There has never been any doubt in the Jamaican’s own mind. “There you go, I am the greatest. I’ve worked hard every Olympics to win three gold medals… so I’m just happy that I’ve accomplished so much,” Bolt told reporters.
“It’s a relief but I’m also sad that I have to leave. This is my last one… It’s just so many special feelings I’m feeling,” added the Jamaican.
There is no doubt that Bolt has transformed his sport, if only by almost single-handedly displacing the United States as the superpower of men’s sprinting.
Friday, former world record holder Asafa Powell, Bolt’s training partner Yohan Blake and Nickel Ashmeade gave the double sprint world record holder the lead at the final exchange, albeit an extremely slim one.
That was always going to be enough for Bolt in his final Olympic race, however, and he powered down the straight to finish five metres clear of Japan’s Aska Cambridge.
“I told the guys, ‘don’t give me too much work to do, make it easy’,” Bolt joked after the event. “And they did exactly that, I had no work to do, just to run to the line.”
Ryoto Yamagata had run a blistering opening leg for Japan, who won a stunning silver for their first Olympic medal in the sprint relay in 37.60s, improving the Asian record they set in qualifying.
Trayvon Bromell’s dip for the line was so aggressive that he tumbled over but the United States still thought they were settling for bronze in 37.62s. But then calamity struck. The handover between lead-off runner Mike Rodgers and Justin Gatlin was adjudged to have started before the exchange zone and the Americans were disqualified as they were on their lap of honour. Canada were elevated to bronze.
Mission accomplished for legendary Jamaican
An epic Olympic journey that started on a balmy Beijing evening when a 21-year-old stunned the world by smashing the 100 metres world record came to an end after nine finals and nine gold medals here Friday night.
In the intervening eight years, Usain Bolt has enthralled hundreds of thousands in stadiums in Beijing, London and Rio as well as billions around the world on television, bestriding his sport and the Games like a colossus.
Ahead of Bolt is another year of competition leading up to the World Championships in London, followed by retirement.
“I just have mixed feelings now,” he told reporters. “Relief. I’ve had all this pressure over the years… I will definitely miss the sport, miss the Olympics because it’s the biggest stage.
“Not going to miss these interviews. I’ve done like 500 since I’ve been here. But I’m definitely going to miss the crowd and the energy and just the competition because I love competing. I’ve proved to the world I’m the greatest in the sport, so it’s ‘mission accomplished’ pretty much,” asserted the Jamaican.
Rivals hail Bolt feats
The runners who have lost to Usain Bolt for the past dozen years showered the Jamaican superstar with praise here Friday, after he completed his historic ‘triple-triple’ in his final Olympics.
From the 2008 Beijing Games onwards, the 29-year-old has dominated sprinting, winning every Olympic gold in the 100m, 200m and 4x100m to make history as he eliminated other nations’ chances of standing atop the podium.
American Tyson Gay, who made his Olympic debut in 2008 as Bolt began his astonishing medal sweep, described the Jamaican’s greatness as ‘just self-explanatory’.
“Words can’t describe that type of a guy and what he’s done for the sport. Everybody just appreciates what he’s done,” stated the 34-year-old Gay.
“Man’s a legend,” said American Trayvon Bromell, a 21-year-old who faced Bolt twice during his Olympic debut in Rio, in the 100m and 4x100m.
Noting that early in Bolt’s career experts dismissed the idea that a 1.96m (6’5”) tall athlete could be an effective sprinter, Bromell pointed out the irony that people now suggest he and Canada’s Andre de Grasse, 1.76m (5’9”), are too short to succeed.
“He (Bolt) broke the barrier and showed people that anything is possible,” asserted Bromell, 1.73m (5’8”). “So it gives me hope to show the world that the impossible is possible.”
De Grasse, also 21 and in his Olympic debut, came the closest to challenging Bolt here, pushing the pace in the 200m semifinal.
“No one will be able to tell him … that he’s not the greatest,” De Grasse stated. “He’s proven it over and over, every time. He’s one of the best and I don’t know what else he has to prove.”
But then the best comment probably came from the legend’s mother. “By the time he was three months old, he was pushing. He was so strong and when he was one, he was repeatedly trying to slip out off the bed,” informed Jennifer Bolt. “He was probably born to run.”
She couldn’t have been more closer to the truth.
