There have been so many joys at these London Games that a man repeating an easy win we saw four years ago in Beijing might struggle to grab a headline. But this second lightning strike by Usain Bolt was a statement of superhuman talent in a game of one-hit wonders.
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Gold: Usain
Bolt, in 9.63sec, an Olympic record. Silver: Yohan
Blake (9.75). Bronze: Justin Gatlin, who served a four-year
suspension for doping.
The champion turned the showpiece event of track and field into a parade,
minus the showboating in Beijing. The celebration started after the line,
not while his rivals were still straining to catch him up. There was no time
for cabaret.
“It wasn’t the best reaction start in the world but I executed it and that was
the key,” Bolt reflected.
“My coach said ‘stop worrying about the start because the best part of your
race is the end’. It worked. I said it on the track. People can talk, but
when it comes to championships it is all about business for me and I brought
it. It was wonderful. I knew the crowd would be like this. I can feel that
energy.”
Men win the Olympic
100 metres and then pass it on. The demands are huge, the reigns short.
Bolt’s freakish physical scale seemed to offer no defence against injury,
decline or the advances made by others: principally his friend, rival and
fellow Jamaican, Blake, as well as three eager Americans.
The resurgent Gatlin was a monument to those times. He returned from his four-year suspension in northern Estonia, in August 2010, saying: “Good, bad, indifferent, guilty or not, I have served my time.
"I just want to come back and be able to run and compete like anybody else. It is in my heart. This is what I do. I feel I owe it to my fans and friends to show them I can still do it. But it is almost half a decade since I ran.
“Denial, anger, sadness, a little bit of depression, embarrassment set in but now I am coming to a point where I am more calm.”
Gatlin was the Olympic and world champion and broke the world 100m record (running 9.76) before testing positive for testosterone. A two-year ban in 2001 for amphetamines was overturned when he successfully blamed it on medication to treat attention deficit disorder. A veteran of the contrition industry, he could claim few supporters in this auditorium.
With blockbusting stories everywhere, London 2012 no longer looked to Bolt to be the hottest ticket. Jessica Ennis, Mo Farah, Bradley Wiggins, Sir Chris Hoy, Victoria Pendleton and Ben Ainslie had provided happiness enough.
Bolt’s Beijing blast carried him through the next three years after China’s Olympics but the script changed. ‘Superman is coming’ was London’s message to the ticket-buying public, some of whom handed over £700 for a seat. In the preceding months it changed to: ‘Superman is vulnerable’. Curiosity took over from outright worship.
Yet as the runners hunkered down, newcomers to Olympic sprinting could sense the power, the controlled violence of straight-line running.
World’s fastest man remains one of humanity’s most cherished titles. Camera flashes sparkled around the stadium as the eight contestants exerted psychological pressure on one another on the blocks.
Olympic sprint titles are not generally won by athletes with interrupted preparations. Bolt was outrun by Blake in both the 100m and 200m Jamaican trials.
Within days he was visiting Dr Hans-Wilhelm Müller-Wohlfahrt in Munich, to address possible back-related hamstring trouble.
He ran badly in Ostrava and talked of needing to sleep more before withdrawing from Monaco to concentrate on London.
Fine-tuning was completed away from public scrutiny and he laid his head down in a special 7ft bed. Long-lens snaps of him stretching or wincing after training added to the drama, real or imagined. But his jog to the line in the semi-final and his time of 9.87 said all was well in his world.
Gay was the second fastest man in history. Blake was the youngest world champion ever. Gatlin had been here before and beaten the stress of Olympic finals.
Bolt held three Olympic medals as he messed about on the start line. Bailey is a rising star in America. Martina is the European champion. What more could anyone want?
The resurgent Gatlin was a monument to those times. He returned from his four-year suspension in northern Estonia, in August 2010, saying: “Good, bad, indifferent, guilty or not, I have served my time.
"I just want to come back and be able to run and compete like anybody else. It is in my heart. This is what I do. I feel I owe it to my fans and friends to show them I can still do it. But it is almost half a decade since I ran.
“Denial, anger, sadness, a little bit of depression, embarrassment set in but now I am coming to a point where I am more calm.”
Gatlin was the Olympic and world champion and broke the world 100m record (running 9.76) before testing positive for testosterone. A two-year ban in 2001 for amphetamines was overturned when he successfully blamed it on medication to treat attention deficit disorder. A veteran of the contrition industry, he could claim few supporters in this auditorium.
With blockbusting stories everywhere, London 2012 no longer looked to Bolt to be the hottest ticket. Jessica Ennis, Mo Farah, Bradley Wiggins, Sir Chris Hoy, Victoria Pendleton and Ben Ainslie had provided happiness enough.
Bolt’s Beijing blast carried him through the next three years after China’s Olympics but the script changed. ‘Superman is coming’ was London’s message to the ticket-buying public, some of whom handed over £700 for a seat. In the preceding months it changed to: ‘Superman is vulnerable’. Curiosity took over from outright worship.
Yet as the runners hunkered down, newcomers to Olympic sprinting could sense the power, the controlled violence of straight-line running.
World’s fastest man remains one of humanity’s most cherished titles. Camera flashes sparkled around the stadium as the eight contestants exerted psychological pressure on one another on the blocks.
Olympic sprint titles are not generally won by athletes with interrupted preparations. Bolt was outrun by Blake in both the 100m and 200m Jamaican trials.
Within days he was visiting Dr Hans-Wilhelm Müller-Wohlfahrt in Munich, to address possible back-related hamstring trouble.
He ran badly in Ostrava and talked of needing to sleep more before withdrawing from Monaco to concentrate on London.
Fine-tuning was completed away from public scrutiny and he laid his head down in a special 7ft bed. Long-lens snaps of him stretching or wincing after training added to the drama, real or imagined. But his jog to the line in the semi-final and his time of 9.87 said all was well in his world.
Gay was the second fastest man in history. Blake was the youngest world champion ever. Gatlin had been here before and beaten the stress of Olympic finals.
Bolt held three Olympic medals as he messed about on the start line. Bailey is a rising star in America. Martina is the European champion. What more could anyone want?
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