When Usain Bolt blazed to glory at the Beijing Olympics, he was feted as the hero his tainted sport had been crying out for. Now, having repeated them in Berlin, he can consider himself the saviour of the world championships.
When the event was changed from four-yearly to biennial it lost much of its lustre, and to many fans became just another, slightly more glamourous extension of the grand prix circuit.
While memories of Seoul, Barcelona, Sydney and Athens jump from the mind, it’s far tougher to recall the exploits seen at Seville, Edmonton, Paris and Osaka. Berlin 2009 will be different, however, and not just because of the iconic blue track and the superb 1936 Olympic Stadium that provided such a stunning backdrop. Nobody will ever forget the place where a man first ran ;9.5-something; for the 100 metres. Bolt’s 9.58 still seems a barely believable time coming just a few years after 9.8 was beyond the reach of all but the absolute cream of sprinting.
The 11 hundredths of a second he took off his own world mark was twice as big a slice as any previous reduction since electronic timing was introduced around 40 years ago. And then he did it again in the 200, clocking 19.19, also taking 11 hundredths off.
What makes Bolt’s performances doubly enjoyable is that he achieved them with a smile on his face and without any of the posturing and trash talk that characterised sprinting in the 1980s and 90s. On his 23rd birthday, the Jamaican spent 40 minutes walking round the stadium patiently signing autographs and joking with fans and not one person begrudged him his long-awaited Saturday night party.
Bolt, as in Beijing, was the cutting edge of another terrific Jamaican sprinting display. Shelly-Ann Fraser added the women’s 100m title to her Olympic gold while they also took both relays. Only American Allyson Felix stood in their way as she won the 200m for the third time in a row.
Less high profile but in his own way equally impressive is Ethiopian Kenenisa Bekele, who like Bolt now owns the world and Olympic titles and world records in both of his events, the 5,000 and 10,000 metres. He has now won the 10,000 title four times in a row, matching the feat of compatriot Haile Gebrselassie, and is the first to achieve the double at the world championships.
