August 16, 2008: Usain Bolt wins the 100m Final in Beijing and sets a new 9.69 world record
Lightning-fast Bolt wins Olympic 100m
BEIJING – Track and field needs a new hero. It got one Saturday night who can fly. In the most outrageous display of speed to ever burn across the Olympic Games, Usain Bolt of Jamaica rocketed to gold in winning the men’s 100m dash in 9.69 seconds — not only a new world record but the first time in the history of human beings a man has run the distance under 9.7 seconds without a significant tailwind.
Bolt wins 100-metre gold, shatters record
Jamaica’s Usain Bolt ran an electrifying 9.69 seconds in the 100-metre sprint to set a new world record and take Olympic gold at Bird’s Nest Stadium in Beijing on Saturday night.
Bolt strikes like Beijing lightning
BEIJING: Usain Bolt capped his stunning rise to stardom with an Olympic title yesterday and, without even really trying, set a world record in the 100 metres.
August 20, 2008: Usain Bolt wins the 200m Final in Beijing and sets a new 19.30 world record
Bolt is even better than Superman
Usain Bolt left me and thousand of others here in the Bird’s Nest stadium in Beijing lost for words after the brilliance of his 200metres run.
Brilliant Usain Bolt is on fast track to history
Usain Bolt has become the greatest sprinter of all time — and he is going to get even better
Dramatic athletics – but Britain beware
In the same way as Mexico City is remembered for Bob Beamon and Munich for Lasse Viren, the athletics in Beijing will be remembered for Usain Bolt. These were Usain’s Games, and beyond that, Jamaica’s. Nothing could ever top what he did in the 100m, 200m and the relay. Even the other athletes only seemed to want to talk about him.
‘My name is Lightning Bolt’
BEIJING–Usain Bolt had the double gold sewn up coming into yesterday’s 200-metre final, so he made the Olympics even more magical by conjuring up a world record to emulate the record he set in the 100.
What a victory! This was not left to politicians, voting patterns or the edge some groups fight for. This was a young man, fighting a solitary event and coming out triumphant, twice. In wealthy countries, the athletes win who have the best equipment, in the 100m and 200m events, its a man/woman in a racing suit and sneakers. End of story.
Once again, Jamaica has shown itself a leader in sport.Go, Jamaica, Go.
A remarkable achievement! Young men like Bolt and Thompson should be featured by the media as role models instead of highlighting the murders on every front page. There are many more positive examples in T&T and the Caribbean of young men and women doing exceptional things other than drugs and murders. The media is failing in its job to feature them because of the negative focus on every front page and news headline.
Bolt-age of power
HE’S an orthopedic surgeon; an avid reader of historical and scientific literature and a self-confessed admirer of modern art. One need not be an FBI profiler to realize that IOC president Jacques is a dedicated killjoy.
Deluded Jacques Rogge fails to see the champion in Usain Bolt
If you want to know just how out of touch the IOC is then listen to Jacques Rogge, a deluded individual who is the organisation’s president. Commenting on Usain Bolt, the man who is single-handedly dragging athletics’ reputation from the gutter back into the mainstream, Rogge was a tad miffed that the Jamaica sprinter had not taken a break from redefining the parameters of physical endeavour to shake hands with his rivals.
Celebrating the good and great
…the fundamental point of contention in all of this is that we continue to tolerate, and in many cases, accept without the merest hint of protest, the dictates of others as to what qualifies as proper, whether that propriety relates to societal conventions or sporting celebrations.
Usain Bolt blasts past perfection, so why do I think he should stop?
What would he do this time? That was the question that obsessed the world as a 6ft 5in Jamaican slouched towards history. Would he dance all the way? Would he gurn and showboat? Would he remember to tie his shoelace this time? One thing we did know was that he would be fast, but how fast? How fast could he go if, this time, he actually tried every step of the way?
Bolt the greatest
Newsday Editorial
Friday, August 22 2008
newsday.co.tt
Jamaica, best known as the land of reggae, is now also known as the land of runners.
Usain Bolt is the fastest man in the world, and already there is talk of him being the greatest runner of all time. Having taken the 100-metre gold medal in record-breaking time last week , the 21-year-old Jamaican on Wednesday also bettered the world record of American Michael Johnson — who had predicted the day before that Bolt would fail to do so — by winning the 200- metres race in 19.30 seconds. He is the first man to ever break world records at both events in a single Olympics. And Bolt’s mastery was shown by the ease with which he outstripped his competitors. While tenths of a second usually separate the runners in track events, Bolt won the 200-metres with over half a second to spare.
So Jamaica is now on the map for persons other than tourists and youthful music-lovers, as is the rest of the Caribbean. But the success of the region’s athletes inevitably invites criticism, especially from developed-country commentators whose media dominate the games and who are miffed, especially in the case of the Americans, at their country’s failures to medal.
So the BBC, before the 100-metres event, went so far as to describe top Caribbean track stars as having “sudden” success — this being an indicator of performance-enhancing substances.
Some American sportscasters asserted that drug-testing in Jamaica is not as rigorous as in the United States. But, apart from the fact that tests are done at international meets and during the games themselves, such a remark can easily be turned on its head — perhaps it is the increaser rigor of drug tests over the past four years which explains the present, and novel, underperformance of American athletes.
It is a fact that drug use has tainted the Olympics and athletics in general. But it is also a fact that the triumphs of the Jamaican runners should not be surprising. Jamaicans have long held premier positions in track, usually taking silver and bronze medals at the Olympics.
So there is a cultural tradition stretching back decades. Moreover, scientific research shows that this superiority in track athletics has a firm biological basis: 70 percent of Jamaicans have a gene, common to West African peoples, which produces a protein in their fast-twitch muscle fibres that has been linked to sprinting performance. But such genes are shaped by environmental cues so, while Afro-Trinidadians may have a similarly high percentage of the relevant genes, Jamaica also has the Boys and Girls Athletics Championships, known simply as Champs, which creates both commitment and national pride in the sport.
So the systems must be in place in order to take advantage of the genes.
Pride in athletics, however, is too often used as a substitute by politicians for pride in more substantive issues. Jamaican Prime Minister Bruce Golding, for example, has described Jamaicans as “extraordinary people” because of their athletes’ success, even as he had to personally order roads from the hometowns of Bolt and 100-metre women’s champ Shelly-Ann Fraser fixed.
If, however, a country cannot take care of such basics — and this also applies to Trinidad and Tobago — athletic success is mere icing on a hollow cake.
http://www.newsday.co.tt/editorial/0,84846.html
And the Nation of Sore Losers attributes this to “Voodoo”, in the words of one member of the US team after their relay hopes died on a fallen baton. That same group are pursuing the possibility of China’s gymnasts being under sixteen. Some countries need to recognize that given the absence of steroids, that disgraced many of their performers, the sheer talent of Caribbean runnners is coming to the forefront.
I have never seen so many small islands get to the finals, and Bolt is the triumphant example of what can be the result. Even though the guy from the Netherlands Antilles was disqualified for stepping on the line, he still had a fantstic seocnd place. Go Jamaica, Go Caribbean, but may Triidad and Tobago triumph today in the relay.
Me, again. Now that the men’s relay results are in, I am waiting to hear the head of the IOC criticise the American woman relay team member ,who said “Its voodoo or something” that somebody did to them, to explain the Americans failure to qualify. Had a Russian, French or Polish competitor said the same, it would have been denounced as the racist remark it is.
Caribbean runners and East and North African runners are built for speed. They do not have the wide build of American male athletes. (look at the Cuban hurdler, the guy disqualified from the 200 from the Antilles, and all the Trini runners. They have racing bodies.) Its the triumph of genetics over steroids. Nothing voodoo about that.
These are the first steroid-free races, where people are running on talent only enhanced by training. Sour grapes should not be part of the sport. NBC sportscasters should take note of that.
Let us not get carried away.Time will tell if these athletes are clean. I have been disappointed too many times. I am hoping and praying that the Jamaican team is clean. No one can say with confidence that these are the first steroid-free races.
It’s obvious that some people don’t win at many things to make such a big deal about small things. I guess voodoo could be a racist comment if the person making such a claim really believed that such a thing was not only real, but tied exclusively to one race. Does voodoo realy exist or was that sprinter just talking about the bad luck that they were experiencing? Congrats to Bolt! He is definately clean. Anyone with a brain and energy to look at all of his times leading up to the record setting performance would know that. Personally I am unsattisfied because Tyson Gay was injured and could not make the finals. He is the only man to beat Bolt this year. Track and field in the states has been taking a beating for many years now. Most of the social demographic that has been most likely to compete in that sport have been competing in sports that have a more lucrative payout. The rest have been victem to the street. It’s completely rediculous that someone would claim that Africans of the diaspora in the western hemisphere are so biologicaly different that some make better sprinters. Whats even more troubling is that the person making the comment about the buid of American male atheletes as if they do not know who Tyson Gay is for example. That person would see that before the weight program is introduced that the 16 year old man competing at the local high school is built the same way Usain Bolt was when he was 16. One thing is for sure and that is that jealousy and ignorance have no place in sport. Excellent job to Bolt and Thompson (who trained in the U.S.). Did anyone watch the 4×400 meter relay? The Americans looked like a couple of wide body doping maniacs didn’t they? I didn’t think so either
Nah, I admit, the 4×400 guys and gals looked streamlined too. Maybe Their Voodoo was working these times. I noticed, however, that they did not claim that. Nor did they, in winning, show appropriate recognition of the second and third place guys- the fault noticed in Bolt by the head of the IOC. We continue to have one standard of expectation of the Americans and another of Caribbean athletes.
It is easy for any country to identify other’s talents and reap the harvest of it. All of the scholar athletes from the Caribbean, going to the US to study and run, study and play soccer or whatever other sport, first had to be identified as talent in their home country. If America can benefit from it, as well as help the athlete, so be it. They benefit also from our oil and bauxite as well as natural gas.
Even the noted Jamaican/American Poet, Claude McKay, credited with beginning the Harlem Renaissance, won a poetry contest in Jamaica first, and his prize was a chance to study in the USA. So polishing talent, and having talent are not the same kettle of fish. Luckily China can identify and polish its own talent, so no one can take credit for their success, other than themselves, thus accusations of age cheating. The countries whose athletes were stripped for doping this year, as well as the horses that were banned for doping, have remained silent.
As a Caribbean/American, I try to see the widest view possible. Attributing others success to voodoo is the same as saying that East Africans run long distances because they grew up being chased by lions. There are no lions in Eastern Europe. Yet their women are good long distance racers also.
These sorts of statements are so endemic to some people’s thinking that they seem natural. It may be that others are so used to being put down that that seems natural also. I keep the edge of my anger well honed. The American woman runner- Marion Jones, now serving time in a Texas prison for doping, was not mass muscled, she looked quite “normal”.
Marion Jones should have never gone to jail. She made a mistake ,lost all her medals and attempted to cover up her drug use.In a society where taking enhancements to improve performance is so common place, why give a jail sentence to someone who paid a severe price for her mistakes.Marion Jones does not belong in jail.
T-Man, both you and MArion Jones know that there are two standards of justice in America. A football player went to jail for dogfighting- Michael Vick, and a white man shot two men to death, in the yard of his neighbour, after being told by the 911 people whom he called, to stay inside his house. He said he was going out to shoot them. He did. They died. He was not charged. MArion Jones was born in America, she knew the rules. None of the big baseball players have spent a day in jail, nor do I suspect that they will
Nothing new about that. So, why tell us the obvious?
The law is the law. Jones and Vick broke the law by all interpretations. The man in Texas did not. Barry Bonds might see jail time, but not for steroid use. He will see jail time for not telling the truth about his steroid use.