KOO, did you notice that Usain Bolt was angry with himself after winning the 200m Olympic event that gave him his 8th Olympic gold medal? Yes, Koo! Some people are hard to please, are they not? Just because he didn’t set a new record, he wasn’t happy! But was that a realistic expectation, Koo? Not to you and me, with our fat bellies and wobbly legs! Hoho! I speak for both of us! You just don’t want to face the truth. When did you last walk two miles? Or use the equipment you have installed in your home to save you walking to the gym? Listen, my friend, you are not supposed to reveal my inconsistencies to the world like that, you know? Listen – it costs nothing to have aspirations, huh? Aspirations!What a nice word! It…. I know what it signifies, as far as YOU are concerned! It masks your failures by implying – without actually saying so – that they have occurred in spite of your lofty intentions! But we’re not talking about me! We’re talking about Usain Bolt! By the time our conversation reaches the world, the guy would most probably have collected a ninth gold medal and attained the “triple triple” or “treble treble” or “treble triple” (the world can call it what it likes) but all it means is that he has cornered three gold medals at three Olympic Games “back-to-back”, “consecutively”: “successively” I mean, where are the words to describe his feat? And yet he was not quite happy? Right! He would have liked to break records whilst doing that. Isn’t that too ambitious? He’s forgotten, of course, that only two months ago, he suffered a hamstring injury that could have prevented him from appearing at the Rio Olympics at all! Yes, it’s that self-obsession that creates greatness in people! He’d suffered a hamstring injury, so what? (he must have told himself). In Jamaica, his home, he must have experienced – like all of us raised in technologically-challenged countries –loads of injuries and other mishaps. So he’d grown accustomed to quickly recovering…. And also, great people don’t, as a rule, like to dwell on their disasters. They think they are lucky; invincible; destined to succeed by all means. They see what to others would be an earth-shattering occurrence as a mere “blip” in their march to greatness; a blip that must be erased and replaced with the optimism that makes a man or woman get up each day, run/exercise/train for hours on end (usually enduring excruciating pain) until an insane goal is reached! What amazes me is the ability of those who do notwin at their events, to come up and try, try and try again! Koo, can you imagine running alongside Usain Bolt in the same race? After you’ve trained every day for four yearsin an attempt to beat him? It must be cruel! Competitors can’t help asking: But dear Lord, what have wedone against you? Hahahahahaha! It may not be as soul-destroying as you think, you know? Why not? It can’t help creating an inferiority complex in some people? Ah yes! But one also beats other people, doesn’t one? So it equals up – you beat others, others beat you! And Usain Bolt beats everyone else! It’s the basis for all competition, and people in the business do learn pretty early in their careers that they’ve got to accept the fact that others would be better than them. Just as they are better than others. It reminds me of a poem I once read in which a fine poet, Matthew Arnold, warns us that:
“In vain our pent wills fret
And would the world subdue
Limits we did not set
Condition all we do
Born into life we are
And life must be our mould!” Well, Usain Bolt said, at the end of the 200m race, that he was “getting old” and that his body “had not responded” when he’d called on it to break the record! So there’s hope for those younger athletes whom he’s been beating. At the next Olympics, he will be 33 years of age. He probably won’t dare to show up, even though the pressure on him to move from legendary to phenomenal status will be enormous. I think he will retire after one more spectacular showing at the next IAAF World Championships. It would be sad if he were to be tempted to over-estimate his abilities and get beaten by lesser men – in front of the eyes of the [formerly] admiring world. To be brutally “disqualified” by the damage that age does to us all in the end, will be pathetic in the extreme! Do you think there ever will be another one like him?
– I doubt it! Even if someone rises in the future who can run like him, and who can match him in terms of statistics, he wouldn’t have Bolt’s personality. To begin with, look at the guy’s size – six foot five! He has no right to be not ungainly! When he starts off the block slowly, you think they’re going to leave him behind. But then, he uses that huge trunk of his to “pump up speed” and before you know it, he’s looking round to mock at the others with the unstated boast: “Look at what I have done! What do you think you are doing here?” The other day, he even managed to crack a joke that made Andre de Grasse, a competitor from Canada (who is only 21 and has been described as “the young pretender” to Bolt’s title) laugh – as they were “breaking the tape”! No – Usain Bolt is one of a kind. It’s been fortunate for those of us in this generation to see him. But to expect others to see his like again would be unrealistic. Except that they probably said the same thing of Jesse Owens. Or Carl Lewis. Yet, here came Usain!