My records are not meant to be broken, says Usain Bolt
4 Sept 2014 5:21 AM IST
In city on one-day sponsor commitment trip, the imposing sprinter, the first man to hold both the 100 metres and 200 metres world records, was at his wittiest best while facing the media. Asked if his 100m record of 9.58sec would ever be broken, Bolt said with a straight face, ‘That’s pretty much out of reach.’
Amid a round of applause and some laughter, the ‘fastest man on earth’ added that his rivals would have to work really hard to match his greatness. ‘As an athlete I have seen records come and go. They have always been broken but if you want to be as great as me, you have to work very hard. That’s why my records will stand the time,’ he said.
There was more to come when questions turned on whether he thought anybody among his contemporaries were good enough to beat him. ‘Nobody,’ said Bolt after chuckling at the question itself. On a more serious note, he said ‘Track and field is a weird sport. It’s all about focus and mental capacity. It’s hard to pick any one person but my coach thinks Justin Gatlin is good. Tyson Gay, Yohan Blake, so many guys are coming up. But I am not going to let anybody beat me!’
Cricket is his other passion but asked why he took up sprinting instead of the gentleman’s game, Bolt said ‘blame it on my dad’. ‘My father is a huge cricket fan...but when I got higher secondary, I had two options, cricket or athletics. My dad said because of the system in Jamaica, it would be better to take up athletics. He said, you just have to run fast in athletics while it’s tougher to get into the national (cricket) team.’
Among other things cricket, Bolt was also quizzed as to who, in his opinion, could be as fast as him, Bolt, after some deliberation, ‘AB de Villiers.’ Asked bout his sporting idol growing up, Bolt said he looked up to basketball player Kevin Garnett.
‘Kevin Garnett was my idol who I was looking up to when I was growing up. I wanted to achieve what he had in his game,’ he said.
Amid a round of applause and some laughter, the ‘fastest man on earth’ added that his rivals would have to work really hard to match his greatness. ‘As an athlete I have seen records come and go. They have always been broken but if you want to be as great as me, you have to work very hard. That’s why my records will stand the time,’ he said.
There was more to come when questions turned on whether he thought anybody among his contemporaries were good enough to beat him. ‘Nobody,’ said Bolt after chuckling at the question itself. On a more serious note, he said ‘Track and field is a weird sport. It’s all about focus and mental capacity. It’s hard to pick any one person but my coach thinks Justin Gatlin is good. Tyson Gay, Yohan Blake, so many guys are coming up. But I am not going to let anybody beat me!’
Cricket is his other passion but asked why he took up sprinting instead of the gentleman’s game, Bolt said ‘blame it on my dad’. ‘My father is a huge cricket fan...but when I got higher secondary, I had two options, cricket or athletics. My dad said because of the system in Jamaica, it would be better to take up athletics. He said, you just have to run fast in athletics while it’s tougher to get into the national (cricket) team.’
Among other things cricket, Bolt was also quizzed as to who, in his opinion, could be as fast as him, Bolt, after some deliberation, ‘AB de Villiers.’ Asked bout his sporting idol growing up, Bolt said he looked up to basketball player Kevin Garnett.
‘Kevin Garnett was my idol who I was looking up to when I was growing up. I wanted to achieve what he had in his game,’ he said.
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