IT’S THE DAY before the opening ceremony of the Paris Olympics, a time when athletes’ nerves are typically jangling, as the moment they’ve trained their whole lives for finally arrives. But for 100m and 200m world-record holder and eight-time Olympic gold medallist, Usain Bolt, the day before the Games was always a time to savour.
“For me, when there’s a championship, I’m always excited,” says Bolt, a Hublot ambassador, who’s speaking to me today on Men’s Health’s Turning Point Podcast from his home in Jamaica. “You know what I mean? Especially if I knew I was in great shape, I knew training went well, I knew everything was flowing, then I’m just in a great mood and feeling wonderful. I would be feeling good right now.”
Bolt – a man whose very name invokes the might of the gods, the potency of elemental forces and is perhaps the greatest-ever argument for the power of nominative determinism – was famously relaxed on the starting blocks at major meets. As his po-faced competitors postured and preened, the Jamaican superstar unselfconsciously played to the crowd, before settling down into his blocks to get down to business.
Standing 6’ 5”, Bolt would often be relatively slow out of the blocks. It didn’t matter. His astonishing leg speed, coupled with his long stride, enabled him to reel in then blast past his competitors. Many times, he celebrated before reaching the finishing line. In Rio, he famously traded smiles with Canadian silver medallist Andre de Grasse. Afterwards, in the glow of victory, track and field’s court jester would resume his dialogue with the crowd, as he unleashed his signature bow-and-arrow pose.
“For me, it was easy,” says Bolt of his chilled-out vibes on the track. “It was just my personality. It was who I am.”
In case you needed any reminding, Bolt took the athletics world by storm back at the 2008 Beijing Olympics, winning the 100m in a record time of 9.69 seconds and the 200m in 19.30, also a world record. A year later at the World Championships in Berlin, he would smash those records, this time clocking 9.58 in the 100m and 19.19 in the 200m. He would defend his Olympic titles in London in 2012 and again in Rio in 2016, adding to his haul with gold medals in the 4 x 100m in London and Rio.
In its sustained excellence, Bolt’s is a resume you would think would be safe for some time – the 100m mark looks particularly untouchable. But American Noah Lyles has approached Bolt’s 200m record, recording a time of 19.31 in 2022. How does the greatest sprinter of all time feel about the possibility of his records one day falling?
“Anybody who has a record hopes it lasts forever,” says the 37-year-old. “You always want to be in the record books for as long as possible. I wish it would continue. And hopefully, when my boys come and they do track and field they can break it. That’d be pretty cool.”
But while he hopes his records endure, the Jamaican admires Lyles’ ambition. “You got to respect that,” he says of Lyles’ stated aim to claim Bolt’s records and his mantle as the track and field GOAT. “I think as an athlete, you definitely want to break records and be on top and be the best. He seems like a hardworking guy, pretty chill. But for me, I never want my record to go. But if it goes, records were meant to be broken.”
So, how did Bolt manage to sustain motivation once he’d claimed the gold in Beijing and the world record in 2009? The truth is, behind his laid back demeanour, Bolt was a disciplined and highly strategic athlete – and one who always had an eye on his legacy.
“My main goal was winning three Olympics back-to-back,” he says. “But every year I would just set a target time I would want to try to win the [world] championship in, that was always something. I was always pushing myself.”
That attitude was one that had to be forged. Bolt admits that as a junior athlete blessed with preternatural talent, it all came a little too easily to him. “I was a very talented youngster,” he says. “I won the World Juniors when I was 15, won World Youths. I was always dominant, but I never trained that hard to get to that level. So, when I got to the professional level, I felt like it was the same thing, I would just make it easily, no problem. I thought I didn’t have to work that hard.”
Working with coach Glen Mills helped Bolt knuckle down. “I think over the years of working with my coach and travelling and learning a lot, I just matured and understood that, Listen, if I want to be great, if I want to be good, I have to buckle down and train hard. And that’s what happened. We got to ’07 and I lost to Tyson Gay in the 200 metres. That’s when I was like, You know what, I really need to put in the full work and I really need to buckle down. That was the turning point.”
Bolt wearing the Hublot Big Bang Tourbillon Automatic Yellow Neon Saxem I image courtesy of Hublot
He would never look back – except to see his competitors trailing in his wake – after ’07 and joining him on that journey has been luxury Swiss watchmaker Hublot. Bolt became an ambassador for the maison in 2010, impressed by their vision and the way it aligned with his own goals. “It was just a magnificent brand, a brand that was continuously growing,” he says. “I think one of the big things was that when I started out and I wanted to start working on my foundation they were so supportive. Any event I was doing, there was always that support. When I’d just started, that was necessary and that was needed. For me, that was a big thing.”
Today he’s wearing the very first watch the brand designed for him, the Usain Bolt Big Bang King Power, featuring the same gold-coloured synthetic leather as his sprinting spikes. “It was my first watch. They made this after Beijing. This is one of my favourites. That’s why I’m wearing it today. I love this watch because it started everything.”
By everything, he means a legacy that will be tough for any track athlete to ever top. One that has the implicit bonus that you get to wake up every morning knowing you’re the fastest human being who’s ever lived. It’s hard to imagine what that feels like – or the God-tier bragging rights it gives you over your mates.
Bolt breaks into a smile. “Sometimes I remind my friends like, ‘Yo, just remember I’m the fastest man in the world’. It’s always fun to talk about. It’s a great title to have.”
Usain Bolt is a Hublot ambassador
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