Amazing feat or just another cheat?

Laid back, calm, relaxed, yet also arrogant. These are common traits amongst the world’s fastest men. Usain Bolt in particular, has every reason to be the above because he has been dubbed ‘the best’. Shades of all conquering sportsman such as Mohammad Ali and Tiger Woods seem apparent in a man who people have described as one of the greatest sportsmen ever. But for all the characteristics of his personality, one thing must be questioned, just how does he do it?

His physique for a start is apparently primed for sprinting. His height gives him an understandable advantage over smaller, more muscular men. But where does the ‘fast twitch’ fibres in his legs come from? His ancestors descend from east Africa, where there is a hotbed of world class marathon runners. Without fast twitch fibres in his legs, he would be perfect for running long distances, the long legs, and the large lungs for example. He stands out, there’s no doubt about that. How is a man able to gain fast twitch fibres when his physique suggests he should be competing at far greater lengths than 100 or 200 metres?

When Bolt smashed another world record in Berlin at the 2009 World Championships in the men’s 200m final his predecessor to the record, Michael Johnson commented “he doesn’t run with technique, he doesn’t care about technique, you look at him rock back and forth, his shoulders all over the place, because he can afford to do that”.

Not only is his technique under scrutiny but maybe his diet too. How is it possible to achieve such feats when Bolt apparently lives on a diet of yam and chicken nuggets? There seems to be an acceptance amongst society that he is a phenomenon, yet this borders on naivety. Such is some people’s awe of his achievements that they seem reluctant to question or doubt what they have witnessed.

Let’s look at what the “lightning Bolt” has achieved, in particular the 100m sprint. For the early 2000’s it seemed impossible for anyone to break through the 9.77 second barrier set by fellow countryman Asafa Powell.

Fast forward to the Bird’s Nest stadium in Beijing for the 2008 Olympic Games where Bolt won by a considerable margin and set an astonishing time of 9.69 seconds. He completed the race with arms aloft, as if there was a sort of certainty that he would win, that he knew he was untouchable. He had just set a record that chopped a massive chunk of 0.08 seconds off the previous time. For years sprinters would manage to shave milliseconds off records. Then 14 months after the Olympics, Mr Bolt managed to reduce his record even further by 0.11 seconds to 9.58. It had taken 30 years to achieve such reductions in men's sprinting times.

For me, there must be something else, for records to fall like rain, for no apparent reason appears suspicious to say the least. Bear in mind 5 of Bolt’s Jamaican sprint teammates have had serious questions raised over the legitimacy of their times due to the nature of Jamaican Athletics anti-doping tests.

His character, swagger and such is enviable however the way in which he wins with such ease must be regarded as a contentious issue.