WILL BOLT BOUNCE BACK IN ROME?

When Usain Bolt struggled to a ‘slow’ 10.04-second win in Ostrava recently, many of his fans felt a cold chill run down their collective spine. Oh My God, how is it possible for Bolt to run slower than 10 seconds in a final?

In 30 finals, Bolt has only failed to dip below 10 seconds on four occasions, most of those coming before he exploded onto the world stage in 2008 when he opened his season with a 10.03 clocking at GC Foster College before stunning the world with a 9.76 run at the Jamaica Invitational and then 9.72, a new world record, in New York a few weeks later. He would break the record again in Beijing later that year. Since then Bolt couldn’t get above 10 seconds even if he tried. Few who saw it will forget Bolt’s semi-final run in Berlin a year later when looking like he was out for a jog Bolt delivered an astonishing 9.89-second performance that surprised even him.

“It naa go normal!” he shrieked when he saw the time. This was in reference to what he expected to do in the finals given that the 9.89s came so effortlessly. Sure enough Bolt delivered a jaw-dropping 9.58s in the finals that elevated him to the status of ‘god’ among sprinters.

By his own standards Bolt has been closer to a more mortal status since that time partially due to injury and to what coach Glen Mills described as a ‘rest’ period, which would allow Bolt’s body to recover from two years of super high-level performances that saw him deliver five individual world records over the 100metres and 200metres.

Bolt began the journey back to his lofty standards late last season when after struggling to regain his fluid form he hit an unexpected obstacle in the 100-metre final in Daegu that saw him being disqualified for false starting thus preventing him from defending his world title. He did end the season with a 9.76s run in Brussels and then opened up this season with 9.82 at the Jamaica Invitational on May 5.

Any journey back to the pinnacle of athletic performance however, is never going to be easy. In that light there should be little surprise that Bolt ran so ‘poorly’ in Ostrava. That performance was flawed. I am sure that when Bolt and his coach Glen Mills looked back at the tape they would have seen the former caught sitting in the blocks at the gun. They would have seen him pop straight up and not forward, they would have seen him rush through his drive phase struggle to accelerate but still manage to get by a weak field and win comfortably.

There were also external issues to be taken into account. The temperature in Ostrava fluctuated between six and 18 degrees Celsius and this may have caused the generally slow times right across the board. Bolt also explained that he may have been deprived of sleep and proper eating, which I know can affect performance. After the race he complained that his legs felt weak and if the complaints were legitimate then his explanation is plausible.

Rome is next and Bolt will have added motivation to ‘bounce back’ from his not so impressive win last week. He goes up against former world record holder Asafa Powell, one of only two men to beat Bolt in the last four years, and the White Lightning Christophe LeMaitre of France. The track is fast and the competition potentially strong, let’s see how Bolt responds.