Jamaica's Usain Bolt
...simply Incredible!

His parents ran the local grocery store in the rural area, and Bolt spent his time playing cricket and football in the street with his brother,later saying, "When I was young, I didn’t really think about anything other than sports".

At the date of this article, Bolt holds the world record for the 100 metres, the 200 metres and, along with his teammates, the 4x100 metres relay.

He also holds the Olympic record for all three of these races. At the 2008 Summer Olympics, Bolt became the first man to win three sprinting events at a single Olympics since Carl Lewis in 1984, and the first man to set world records in all three at a single Olympics. In 2009 he became the first man to hold the 100 and 200m world and Olympic titles at the same time!

selected pictures from flikr.com

Bolt distinguished himself with a 200 m gold medal at the 2002 World Junior Championships, making him the competition's youngest-ever gold medalist. In 2004, at the CARIFTA Games, he became the first junior sprinter to run the 200 m in under 20 seconds with a time of 19.93 s, breaking Roy Martin's world junior record by two-tenths of a second.

He turned professional in 2004, missing most of his first two seasons due to injuries, but he competed at the 2004 Summer Olympics. In 2007, he beat Don Quarrie's 200 m Jamaican national record with a run of 19.75 s.

In May 2008, Usain Bolt set his first 100m world record with a time of 9.72s. He set world records in both 100 m and 200 m events at the 2008 Beijing Summer Olympics: 100 m record time of 9.69 s broke his own previous record of 9.72 s; with a record time of 19.30 s he broke previous record of 19.32 s by Michael Johnson at the 1996 Summer Olympics in Atlanta.

In August 2009, a year after the Beijing Olympics, he lowered his own 100 m and 200 m world records to 9.58 s and 19.19 s respectively at the 2009 World Championships. His record breaking margin in 100 m is the highest since the start of digital time measurements.

As a result of Bolt's successes in athletics, he was named the Laureus World Sportsman of the Year for 2009. His achievements in sprinting have earned him the media nickname "'Lightning Bolt".

Bolt expresses a love for dancing and his character is frequently described as laid-back and relaxed.The first sport to interest him was cricket and he said if he was not a sprinter he would be a fast bowler instead. He is a fan of the Indian batsman Sachin Tendulkar, West Indian opener Chris Gayle and Australian opener Matthew Hayden.

Bolt's Jamaican track and field idols include Herb McKenley and, former Jamaican 200 m record holder, Don Quarrie. Michael Johnson, the former 200 m world and Olympic record holder, is also held in high esteem by Bolt.

On March 11, 2010, he launched the Usain Bolt Track and Records Sports Bar.

I pulled much of this from Wiki, for more, and everything else on Uusain Bolt, please see the original Wikipedia article.

Originally posted: 8/23/2009

Please, don't miss these related pages either:

• Bolt Shatters his world record
• Athletics in Jamaica
• Sports in Jamaica
• Jamaican Bobsled Team
• Football in Jamaica
• Our Jamaican Blog
• Our Discussion Forums

Make sure you subscribe to my free monthly e-zine My Island Jamaica Digest (MIJD) and stay with the latest from Jamaica!

Back to Top of Usain Bolt

Return to Famous People from Jamaica from Usain Bolt
Return to My Island Jamaica Homepage from Usain Bolt

New! Comments