Born: 21 August 1986
Country: Jamaica
Anyone who saw the 100m final at the Beijing Olympics 2008 will always have that picture of Bolt celebrating before finishing the race and yet winning by such a vast margin, engraved in his mind forever. You run out of adjectives to describe Usain Bolt. Here are 5 interesting facts about him.
#1 Before Bolt, it was believed that people who were around 5ft 11in had the perfect physique to run the sprint. In fact due to Bolt’s height (6ft 5in) his coaches considered him too tall to compete over the shortest distance.
#2 Due to his height Bolt needs to take fewer strides than any of his rivals to complete the sprint. You would expect his large bounds to take more time than the quick paces of his rivals but they don’t and that’s what makes Bolt special. American sprinter Darvis Patton said about him – “He’s like a cheat code. That’s how good he is.”
#3 At the 2008 Beijing Olympic Games Bolt ran the finals of 100m in 9.69s and the 200m in 19.30s creating Olympic and World records for both events. Then he went on to break the world record in 4X100m relay with the Jamaican team. This unbelievable performance made him the first man to set world records in all three at a single Olympics.
#4 The following year at the 2009 World Championships, Bolt further decreased his 100m and 200m world records to 9.58s and 19.19s respectively.
#5 At London 2012 Olympics, Usain Bolt won the 100m in 9.63s bettering his own Olympic record. Then he became the first man in history to defend his 100m and 200m sprint titles by winning the 200m in 19.32s. On the last day of Olympics the Jamaican team won the 4X100m relay in a world record time of 36.84s and Usain Bolt completed his golden triple. Thus Bolt repeated his performance of Beijing and became the first man to win 6 Olympic gold medals in sprinting.