Image: Source
Still can’t stop thinking about how Usain Bolt messed up yesterday.
It was a crazy day in the Premier League – The league seems to completely belong to Manchester this year, with Liverpool looking like the most likely side to give them any sort of fight. Chelsea too perhaps? I’m not convinced as of now. Arsene Wenger was the tragic figure, along with the Arsenal fans. Wayne Rooney and Alex Ferguson the big winners.
So was Yohan Blake, with his 9.92 running into the wind, becoming the youngest 100 meter World Champions. But as always with Bolt, he was the big story, the main event even without running the actual final. He outshines Cristiano Ronaldo when he practices with Real Madrid, that’s just how charismatic and a star he really is.
From my Tumblr account I noticed that Bolt also managed leaving all the ladies (and some guys) with their mouths open after prancing around with his shirt off.
But lets get serious. His false start was so obvious, too obvious. The first thing to shock us – Bolt is human. His super human achievments – The 9.58 in Berlin, the 19.19 in Berlin, a year after setting 9.69 and 19.30. Bolt talked about just wanting to win medals this year – he didn’t produce any results hinting that he’d break the record this year. The four fastest runners weren’t even in the competition this year (Tyson Gay, Asafa Powell, Mike Rodgers and Steve Mullings). The gold couldn’t have been easier to grab.
And if Bolt is human, like everybody else, than this one strike you’re out rule is idiotic. Why ruin it for everybody – fans and athletes alike? So it’ll take another minute to regroup, re-shuffle. One false start is acceptable in a race when every one hundredth of a second counts. Whatever the reason maybe, the IAAF are facing a tsunami of criticism for this. When the man carrying the sport on his back gets disqualified, one of the few individuals in Athletics that people buy tickets to watch run and win gets stung by a stupid rule, something has to be done. Not just for Bolt, but the sport itself.
But there are other thoughts, questions. Darker ones, hiding in the back of our heads, or at least mine and a few others. The false start was too blatant. For a man as relaxed and confident (at least he looked the part), why the jittery launch forward by .104 seconds (A HUGE false start)? There was no question it was him, and he knew it was him. Now, the question has to be asked – was it on purpose?
Did Bolt throw the race? I’ve heard theories of gambling involved. No way of proving that. Was his whole banging the walls and shouting at himself just an act? Maybe he wants to build up tension and suspense towards the Olympics. Maybe, it’s the D word, something that’s still plaguing the sport. That would be just slander, so I’m putting a big maybe on it. Still, For a man this good, this perfect, this sublime and so much better than the rest for the past three years to fail in such a blatant and unexplained way has to leave us with some big question marks.
2 responses to “Usain Bolt Leaves us With Questions and Worries”
Yohan Blake flinched and Usain Bolt reacted to it. Watch the video closely and you’ll see that Yohan’s leg twitches on the blocks after the starter calls set, which means that Yohan was the first to break the offical starting rules and should have been disqualified for it.It is a ridiculous rule and one that has to be changed immediately. I mean, I tuned into the race last night to watch the fastest man in the world run 100m and I didn’t get to see it happen. And all because some people on the IAAF board (or whatever their title is) changed the conditions under which USain Bolt and all other sprinters are used to running, so they could avoid delays and stop any athlets from taking advantage of one false start, which is totally absurd in a 10 sec race where human error has to be accounted for. You can not say “Hey, if you move while on the block in any of the rounds or final, you’re out.” It’s unreasonable, illogical, unfair and, as it turns out, the biggest dissapointment to come out of the 2011 Athletics World Championships. And this is to say nothing of how Usain Bolt must feel. He was robbed of the chance to do what he does best and we were robbed of the chance to see him do it. Dam it! Change the rule back, or at lest give the field one false start in the final because of the pressure they face, and to give every athlete one chance should they err and to ensure we get to see the best, fastest and most entertaing race possible. Every one should be in contention and every one has to be given a chance, including the best the world has ever seen in Usain Bolt. They, too, are human after all.
Saw the same video Byron did and revised my response towards Bolt – at first I was livid. I can now understand better what happened (though a professional like Bolt should have focused on the gun) but I can understand when you are primed to explode in the 100m how a sudden stimulus can set you off, hence the reason why ALL athletes should remain still. In light of the Dwayne Chambers DQ I think Blake definitely flinched and affected Bolt – no dark thoughts here – and Blake could have suffered the same fate as Chambers or at least gotten a warning had Bolt protested.