The bolt 1

What is the most interesting thing about Usain Bolt? Is it that he’s the world’s fastest man, and the highest-paid athlete in the history of track and field? The star of the Beijing Olympics is already the megawatt draw for London 2012. He is the most famous Jamaican since Bob Marley. He lives in a five-bedroom villa in the hills above Kingston and sleeps with a healthy stack of condoms beside his bed. All of which is interesting, but…
What about the fact that he believes he’s good enough at football to play for Manchester United? Or that he is obsessed by dominoes, and he will only watch tennis if Roger Federer or the Williams sisters are playing? Or that he owns six cars — a Honda Accord, a Honda Torneo, a BMW 335i, a Nissan GTR Skyline, a Toyota Tundra truck, an Audi Q7 — and that all of them are black. No — none of these is the most interesting thing.
It’s a warm Sunday afternoon in Kingston, Jamaica, and I am sitting in a luxury suite of the Spanish Court Hotel with Bolt and five of his handlers: his manager, Ricky Simms, his personal assistant and closest friend since primary school, Nugent Walker Jr (NJ), and three high-ranking officers from Puma, his most important sponsor. Simms is sitting to Bolt’s left, studying a BlackBerry; NJ is calling reception and is ordering Bolt some lunch, and one of the Puma guys is joshing with him about a recent football game — Bolt’s favourite subject — and the brilliance of Wayne Rooney. “Yeah, I watched it,” Bolt concurs. “He had both defenders in front of him and he just went whoosh!”
Bolt can identify with whoosh; and we’re hoping he will show us some. “For me, London is going to be even bigger than Beijing,” he says. “It’s going to be huge. Next year is going to be so important for me.” Three years ago, on a steaming hot evening in Beijing, he lined up with seven of the world’s fastest men in the Olympic 100 metres final. He had spent the week eating Chicken McNuggets and was so laid-back as he entered the track that he forgot to tie a shoelace and was almost left in the starting blocks.
After 20 metres of the race, Bolt was fourth; after 50 metres he was level; at 55 metres he was pulling away from the pack; and at 85 metres the race was won. Bolt dropped his arms, pulled his shoulders back and coasted to the line, thumping his chest. The time was 9.69 seconds. Nobody so tall — he is 6ft 5in — had ever run so fast. In fact, nobody had ever run so fast. “I had no idea I’d broken the world record,” he said afterwards. “How could I have broken it? I was slowing down long before the finish and wasn’t tired at all. I could have gone back to the start and done it all over again.”
Bolt’s celebration was memorably flamboyant. He continued running until he had reached the back straight, then pointed his arms skywards and mimicked the action of a bolt being fired — the “lightning bolt” pose that has become his trademark. He hugged his mother, Jennifer, pulled a Jamaican flag from the crowd and started swivelling his hips and performing dance moves for the cameras.
And the show was only starting. Four days later, Bolt won the 200 metres and completed a magic week in the 4x100 metres relay, making him the first man to win three sprinting events at a single Olympics since 1984, and the first man to set world records in all three at a single Olympics. But it was the smile and the joy that set him apart. And the facility with which he had won. He had made it look so easy!