Heady mantle of world's fastest man
Following in the footsteps of the likes of Jesse Owens and Carl Lewis
cannot be easy, but Usain Bolt has carried the heady mantle of the
world's fastest man with a fun-loving dignity.
In the 20 years since Ben Johnson was stripped of his Olympic gold
and world record in the 1988 Seoul Games, there have been six sprinters
- three Americans, two Jamaicans and one Canadian -- who've held the
coveted title.
Two others, Americans Tim Montgomery and Justin Gatlin, were stripped
of their respective world records after failing doping tests, although
the latter will be competing in London having served a four-year ban.
Lewis (9.92sec in 1992), who mirrored Owens' achievements of four
golds in the 1936 Games, with a quadruple triumph on home soil in Los
Angeles in 1984, is still visible come Olympic time but generally avoids
athletics.
"If anyone ties any of my records, that's wonderful, great. Records
are borrowed, and medals are earned," Lewis told AFP in London. Leroy
Burrell, who clocked 9.85sec in 1994, coaches at the University of
Houston, while Canada's Donovan Bailey (9.84sec in 1996) occasionally
works as a media commentator.
Outspoken American Maurice Greene (9.79sec in 1999) can be seen
holding court at sponsors' tents, making predictions on the 100m, the
final of which is scheduled for Sunday. "Usain will go out there and
continue to do the things he does... But (Jamaican teammate Yohan) Blake
is going to win," said Greene.
Since June 2005, two Jamaicans have been the fastest men on earth:
Asafa Powell and Bolt.
Powell, who will be racing in London but has never claimed a major
individual world or Olympic title, held the record for three years
before Bolt claimed it with a startling 9.69sec in the Beijing Olympics,
before bettering it to a jaw-dropping 9.58sec in the 2009 Berlin world
championships.
Bob 'The Bullett' Hayes, who went on to win the 1972 Super Bowl with
the Dallas Cowboys, set the record of 10.06sec in 1964 in Tokyo, on a
cinder track, had a word of warning for all his record-breaking
successors. "Once you become that, you can only go down," Hayes said of
being the world's fastest, in a Sports Illustrated interview given
shortly before his death in 2002. Hayes' record fell to Bob Hines, the
American who became the first sprinter to clock a sub-10sec run in
helpful conditions at altitude in the 1968 Games in Mexico City, timing
9.95sec. It was a record that lasted until Calvin Smith broke it by
two-hundredths of a second in 1983, followed by Lewis four years later.
AFP |