World’s fastest, by a mile

Usain Bolt — may his name now inspire a million bad puns — did something extraordinary this Saturday night. The 100m race passes in a flash, in less than 10 seconds. Bolt slowed down time to have a conversation with the crowd. He had that conversation, and we actually responded before he sauntered past the finish line — it was nothing faster than that — and the clock recorded a world record. Put on a timer and try replicating that.

This was supposed to be the most open 100m race of recent times. His fellow Jamaican, Asafa Powell, had the record till this summer (9.74 seconds) and had famously exclaimed, “Can a man run 9.6? You should ask if Asafa can run 9.6.” He finished fifth tonight with a time of 9.95, slower than his semi-final time earlier in the evening.

American Tyson Gay had run the fastest, but wind-aided and therefore unofficial, 100m in the US trials this summer (9.68). He failed to clear the semi-finals tonight.

Instead, Bolt pulled along Trinidadian Richard Thompson (9.89) and American Walter Dix (9.91) to silver and bronze medals and their personal bests.

To be in the same arena and then in a press conference room with the fastest man of all time is to be awed. It’s to ask him just the basics. For instance, how did he spend the day he became the fastest man? “I never have breakfast, woke up at 11, sat around, watched TV, for lunch ate some nuggets (I saw him eat the nuggets, pipes in Thompson). Went back to my room, slept for three hours, got some more nuggets, came to the track.”

At the track, he entertained. Because: “The crowd came to see a performance.”

Find in those words the uncomplicated essence of a man who has, with whatever assistance from better gear, nutrition and training, made all of humankind faster. Find too in those words, as all of us silently tried to, answers to unspoken entreaties that he be “healthy” (shorthand for somebody untouched by doping).

Bolt is aiming at a rare feat in this Olympics, a double in 100m and 200m. With his height, 6 feet 5 inches, he would be an unlikely candidate. That kind of height is difficult to uncoil out of the starting blocks. But as the other man with a golden pair of shoes whose record Bolt may just target in the 200m, Michael Johnson, said recently, “I’m ready to kiss it (the record set in Atlanta 1996) goodbye if he (Bolt) keeps on doing what he’s doing.” Bolt’s 6’5”, said Johnson, but he looks 5’6” coming out of the blocks.

That’s it, then. Bolt slows down time and alters his height. Wonder what he would have done if he’d stuck with his original plan to be a fast bowler.