Usain Bolt, the so-called ‘son of the wind’, turns 40. He retired in August 2017 following the World Championships in London, but his legacy remains timeless. He secured eight Olympic golds, three of them exactly ten years ago at the Rio 2016 Games, to which we must add eleven world championship golds and 24 wins in the Diamond League. He also shattered three world records: 9.58 in the 100m; 19.19 in the 200m; and 36.84 in the 4×100. All three remain standing.
His imposing physique, at 1.95 meters with a muscular torso, intimidated opponents who knew that facing him offered the slimmest chances of victory. Everyone hoped that he would not have his day, or would be hindered by some discomfort. That is why some of his feats stay etched in memory, such as August 16, 2009, at the Berlin Olympic Stadium, when he clocked 9.58 seconds for the 100 meters, reaching a top speed of 44.72 kilometers per hour, a record no one has come close to since. Bolt’s progression as an athlete was meteoric, and even as a youngster it was clear he could excel in athletics, despite one leg being slightly shorter than the other.
He was born with a spinal deviation that caused his left leg to be 1.5 centimeters shorter than the right. He was born on August 21, 1986, in Sherwood Content, a small town in Trelawny (Jamaica), where he grew up with his parents, Wellesley and Jennifer Bolt, and his siblings Sadeeki and Sherine. There, his parents ran a small grocery in the rural area while Bolt spent his time playing cricket and football. At Waldensia School he first came into contact with track and field thanks to his teachers, who saw his superiority in running compared with other children.
In this way, and after winning every local race he entered, he was recruited by the Jamaican Federation to compete at an international level, securing his first win in 2002 at the World Junior Championships in Kingston, in the 200 meters. His progression was such that in 2004 they persuaded him to attend the Athens Games at barely 17, but the experience was not the best. He injured himself in the qualifying round of the 200 meters, finishing with a time of 21.05, and Jamaica’s press labeled him ‘soft and cowardly.’ He acknowledged that the experience was ‘horrible’ and came ‘too soon.’ That setback did not dampen his drive to succeed, though he was very clear about his goals.
He declined scholarship offers from American universities to study and train there, but what he did do was switch coaches and place himself in the hands of Glen Mills, who gradually turned the rough diamond he had into a star. The first thing Mills did was take him to Germany to be examined by Dr. Hans Muller-Wohlfahrt, who assessed his back problem. They diagnosed scoliosis, and from that diagnosis Mills adjusted his training routine. The change paid off in 2008. First, when he broke the world record in the 100 meters, and later at the Beijing Olympics, where he won the 100 and 200, also surpassing the world mark in the 200, then held by another legend, American Michael Johnson, set in Atlanta ’96. In this way, a reign began that would last nearly another decade, up to his retirement in 2017, with the peak at the Rio de Janeiro 2016 Olympics, where he achieved the ‘triple-triple’ in the 100 meters, the 200, and the 4×100 relay, joining other ‘legends’ like Finland’s Paavo Nurmi and American Carl Lewis. “Usain Bolt was like Ali, irreplaceable.
There were other great pugilists after him, but none like him, as British former athlete and World Athletics president Sebastian Coe would say in retrospect. After retiring, Bolt tried his luck at football, training with Borussia Dortmund in Germany and the Central Coast Mariners in Australia, but his ball-handling talents did not match his speed on the track. What the Jamaican still retains, as he told EFE in an interview at the Tokyo 2025 World Athletics Championship, is the affection of track and field fans, who see him as ‘a legend,’ something he enjoys and for which he has ‘always worked’ since his days as a professional athlete.