Faster than Lightning: My Autobiography. Usain Bolt
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that. As it got to the time of the 200 race, my legs went weak, my heart was pounding out of my chest. I didn’t think I’d be able to walk, let alone run. Straightaway, I sat down in my lane as everything went on around me in super slow motion. The other runners stepped out on to the track, they were warming up and stretching; all of them looked super calm, but I could only stare at the fans waving and screaming in the bleachers. Somebody shouted out that Anneisha had finished second in her final, and that heaped even more pressure on me. I was now the only home boy with a chance of getting gold in the World Juniors. My brain went into meltdown.
‘What the hell is this?’ I thought. ‘People are going mad.’
I was scared. ‘What did I do to myself to put me here? I knew this was a bad idea.’ I had never felt that much pressure in my entire life.
‘I’m a 15-year-old, the kids running here are 18, 19. I don’t need this …’
Still, something told me I had to get to work. For starters, my spikes had to go on, but even undoing the laces felt like a major challenge. I tried to get into the first one, but for some reason it didn’t fit. I pulled and pulled at the heel, desperately trying to work my toes further into the shoe. No give. I jammed my fingers in there and loosened the tongue. Still no give. It was only when I looked down at my feet, after two minutes or so of fiddling, that I realised I’d stuck my left foot into my right spike. That’s how nervous I was.
Stress does funny things to people, and I was falling apart. I tried to get up, to stand, to jog, but I was too weak from the nerves, so I sat down again. Everyone else was doing their strides, going through their final routines, but I was wishing for an escape route – something, anything to get me out of there.
It was so weird. Once I’d been called to the blocks I managed to calm myself for a second or two, but then an announcer called out my name over a loudspeaker and the whole place burst into life again. It felt like the roof of the stadium was about to come off with the noise.
‘Oh God …’ I thought. ‘What is this?’
‘On your marks!’
I settled into the blocks and started to sweat, big-style.
I was officially upset.
‘Get set!’
Don’t mess this up …
Bang!
I froze, I was unable to move and I looked plain stupid. I was stuck to the blocks, as if my spikes and hands had been superglued to the track. It took what felt like a second or two before I reacted to the gun, and by then everybody else had fired off down the lanes. I was dead last because my start had been so slow – but not for long.
When I came out, everything changed. I began to move – and fast. I could see the other runners getting closer and closer as I made the corner, smooth like Don Quarrie, and then I hit top speed. After that, I can’t really explain what happened over the next few seconds because I don’t honestly know. All I can say is that it felt as if somebody, or something, was pushing me down the track. There was a guiding force behind me; it was as if a pair of rocket boosters had been strapped to my spikes. Even with my weird style of running, head back, knees up, I passed everybody until there wasn’t an athlete in sight, only the finishing line. Then it dawned on me: I was the World Junior 200 metres champ.
And it was insane.
Everyone lost their minds. There were people in the crowd screaming, jumping up and down and waving banners. Somebody handed me a Jamaican flag. I wrapped it around my shoulders, because that’s what I’d seen Michael Johnson do when he had won gold medals during the Olympic Games for the USA, and then I did something that would change the way I looked at track and field for ever. I ran towards the bleachers and saluted the fans like a soldier paying respect to his captain. It was my first move to a crowd in any race and the look on everyone’s faces as I did it told me it wouldn’t be the last. The energy that bounced back off the Jamaican people was like nothing I had ever experienced before.
‘You know what?’ I thought. ‘Being a World Junior champ feels kinda nice!’
As the celebrations went on around me, I thought about what had happened to me out there, Mom’s chat on the verandah, my spikes on the wrong foot. For a second, I had lost it, my mind had gone, my race had stuttered, but I’d still won. How the hell had that happened? How I had walked out in front of an international crowd and dealt with the pressure? Damn, it all seemed pretty crazy to me.
I had landed as a track and field star. I had found mental strength when most athletes would have freaked. I had shut the jitters out and carried the burden of a nation’s hopes on my shoulders. Even better, I’d come through a champ. I knew that nothing was going to faze me after that. Pre-race nerves were done with; no pressure was going to mess with my mind. How could there be anything more stressful than the start line at the World Juniors in front of a crazy home crowd?
The penny dropped with me about how important confidence was to a sprinter, especially in a short event like the 200 metres where supreme mental strength was often the key difference between myself and some of the other racers in my meets. I knew I couldn’t let a negative thought cloud my judgement ever again, because mental strength was a tool in every race, it was as important as a fast start or a powerful drive phase. There was no opportunity for doubt because the contest was over in the blink of an eye. Distraction for one hundredth of a second might be enough to lose a race.
It was my first step to becoming an Olympic legend. As I walked around the National Stadium track I realised I was an athlete that lived for the moment, like the real superstars lived for the moment – The Big Moment. Whereas ordinary guys worried and quivered when they arrived on the Olympic or World Champs stage, the superstars, the Michael Johnsons and Maurice Greenes of this world, were excited by the pressures and the stresses. They moved up a notch, both physically and mentally. At The Big Moment, their performances rocked bells.
I figured I was capable of channelling that same mental power. The World Juniors had been my first Big Moment and I hadn’t collapsed under the weight of Jamaica’s expectation. During my celebratory salute to the fans, I was already mentally transformed. I was a world champ, I’d become the Lightning Bolt to the planet. It was my greatest ever race. Probably always will be.
* Class One was the under-19s event, Class Two was under-16s, Class Three was under-14s; I could have raced in the third class but I would have won too easily, so Coach McNeil placed me in the group above.
† Jermaine would later go on to win bronze in the 400 metres at the World Junior T&F Championships, set a Jamaican national senior 400 metre record and finish fourth in the 400 metres at the 2011 World Championships.
My winning the Junior Champs was so big that when I got home to Sherwood Content after my gold medal race, I was flown to Montego Bay, where a motorcade was waiting for me.
A motorcade.
Now that was big, ridiculously big. The roads that led home to Coxeath were lined with hundreds of people and, as the car passed, they chased after us, forcing their hands into the open window to touch me. All of them were screaming and shouting my name, yelling ‘Bolt! Bolt! Bolt!’ as they raced down the street. It was nearly as crazy as the reception I’d received back in the National Stadium.
I couldn’t believe it. I knew that Jamaicans had a lot of respect for their sports guys, especially in track and field, but a victory parade was something I hadn’t expected. Still, I guess I should have seen it coming. It was pretty clear that I was the dude of the moment. After my 200 win, I’d picked up silver medals in the 4x100 metre relay and 4x400 metre relay,