Saturday, August 16, 2008

I'm In Love With Usain Bolt (and not because he has 'USA' in his name)

Alert: The links in this post are worth clicking on.

I love the Olympics. I love the Olympics like I love Ken Griffey Jr. The Opening Ceremonies were unbelievable, Michael Phelps is Herculean, and America gets lots of medals. I love the Olympics for all of those things and more -- the spirit, the pageantry, the chance to see the best in the world be the best in the world.

Side note: the Men's 4x100 Freestyle Swimming Final was as exciting as sports gets.

Even with all of that going on, I fell in love today. His name is Usain Bolt and he's the fastest man in the world. He's so fast, in fact, that he ran... well, I'll get to that in a second.

Usain Bolt is from Jamaica. He broke the World Record in track's most glamorous event, the 100-Meter Dash, by running it in 9.72 seconds a while back. The 100-Meter dash is my favorite Olympic event, by the way.

Anyhow, he won the Gold Medal in that event today. But it's not that he won it that makes me love him, it's how.



As you can see in the picture, he won by a lot. He ran the fastest 100 meters in the history of the world. 9.69 seconds. He's really really fast.

He's so fast that he didn't bother to tie his left shoe (his shoes were gold, by the way). He's so fast that he didn't tuck in his shirt for the race. He's so fast, that he was the second-slowest person off the blocks (pic #2 in slideshow) in the race and still won by the biggest margin in the history of the event.

Usain Bolt is so fast that he stopped sprinting after 70 meters and began high-stepping his way to the finish line, a la Deion Sanders (1:44-2:17 in the video). He did all of this against the 7 other fastest people on the planet!

The combination of athleticism and showmanship was incredible. on the biggest stage in the world, Usain Bolt brought the house down and took my heart with him.



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1 comment:

Anonymous said...

So . . . he´s fast?

I once had a similar untied shoe, still pushing through experience. Although it was my bra that broke, I had to run with both hands clutching my chest (for 2 miles) . . . oh right. And I came in 2nd to last. Well, it was almost a similar experience.