BEIJING — The fastest man who ever lived had that look of the most devilish kid who ever lived. Usain Bolt had just jogged a 20.09 200 meters, the seventh-fastest time in the world this year, to win his semifinal heat Tuesday night. He was tiptoeing behind the United States’ Shawn Crawford, who was giving an interview.
Opening his eyes wide and holding his index up to his mouth for the media to stay quiet, Bolt poured a bottle of blue Powerade down Crawford’s back. Crawford cringed. Bolt laughed. Then Bolt practically skipped away.
Bolt is sure tense, Crawford is told.
“Would you be?” he said. “If I ran 9.6 shutting it down, I wouldn’t be nervous at all, either.”
On Thursday, track and field’s 2008 wunderkind turns 22. If you’re anywhere near little Coxheath, Jamaica, that day, drop by Miss Lilly Bolt’s Bar. The 11,000 people up the road in Usain’s hometown of Sherwood Content should be down there with Bolt’s aunt throwing one whale of a party.
You’ll likely hear a few renditions of Jamaica’s new reggae hit “9.72,” named for the world 100-meter record that put him on the public’s radar May 31. Then again, maybe they’ll have the update, “9.69.”
The son of a general store owner and a dressmaker will likely add a 200 gold medal to go with the 9.69 world record he blazed in Saturday’s 100. He cruised through three rounds of the 200 with all the urgency of a guy late for a dentist appointment.
How can anyone beat him?
“It’ll take a miracle,” said Christopher Williams, his teammate, who finished sixth in the first heat of the semifinal.
If you don’t follow track, “Lightning Bolt” didn’t come from nowhere. He broke the international junior record in the 200 with a 19.93 when he was 17.
In terms of background, Bolt came from nowhere. Sherwood Content is a rural town in the northern parish of Trelawny where sugar estates and factories are part of the Jamaica tourists don’t see. He used to run barefoot on grass fields with lanes marked by diesel fuel lit on fire. He didn’t get his first pair of spikes until he was 13.
He played cricket, but by age 15 he was the same 6-feet-5 he is today. He became too fast for a cricket bowler and dropped it to shred Jamaica’s proud junior sprint records. American colleges begged him to sign. Instead, he turned pro at 18.
He didn’t want to leave Jamaica. In fact, he cried on his first international trip to a competition. However, when he became the first junior to go under 20 seconds, he got sprinters’ attentions.
After failing to get out of the 200 prelims in Athens in 2004, Bolt switched coaches from Fitz Coleman to Glen Mills, a Jamaican legend. When Bolt broke the world record in New York, earning him a $1.5 million bonus from Digicel, one of his sponsors, it was only the fifth 100 of his career. He had to talk Mills into running it. This kid is too tall to run the 100, they said. Put him in the 400. But Bolt preferred the shorter races because, well, they’re shorter.
After Saturday’s 100, stunned American Tyson Gay said, “It looked like his knees were going past my face.”
And here he is, on the international stage. What a time to show off. Why does he? Because he can, and still set world records.
“That’s just me,” Bolt said. “If you watch me run, you’ll see I like to dance and enjoy myself. You have to enjoy your job.”
John Henderson: 303-954-1299 or jhenderson@denverpost.com
