by Alfonz Juck
Usain Bolt, photo by PhotoRun.net
Bolt in Rio
RIO DE JANEIRO (BRA): Agencies are informing that World fastest man Usain Bolt touched down in Rio de Janeiro on Wednesday night. The Jamaican sprinter arrived at Rio International Airport at 9.02pm local time, after a transatlantic flight from London, where he competed in the Anniversary Games last week. Bolt was greeted by a scrum of media, excited airport staff and members of the public. He briefly posed for photos but said nothing before being whisked off in a private car. “I know the sport needs me to win and come out on top,”says Usain Bolt. He joined with the rest of the Jamaican team members – including Asafa Powell and Yohan Blake – who are already at a pre-Games training camp, which is based at a nearby naval academy.
RunBlogRun opines: Usain Bolt is one of my favorites. He is a few years old than my son, Adam, and I get a kick out of how he comports himself. Usain has a sense of humor, as well as prodigious talent, and a work ethic. Anyone who thinks the guy has not puked along the side of the track in Jamaica, after he survives one of Coach Francis’s workouts, is hallucinating. One does not run world records at 100 meters or 200 meters without a lot of hard work, talent and drive. Why does everyone love Usain? Because he has fun, and he shares his fun, his victories and his joy of life with his fans. Hell, in Glasgow, Scotland, the guy even tried Haegis (something I ate for seventeen straight days)! Keeping sport light is part of why he is so beloved. And in an Olympics where Zika virus, water pollution, muggings, Russian sports doping, IOC appeasement of said Russian sports federations, global politics has reared its ugly head, we will need some athletes with great smiles, huge talents and big hearts.
We live in a world where the fingers on total destruction seem to be possessed, more and more by absolute madmen. For eighteen days, every four years, the world deserves those nearly three weeks of sports to be uninterupted by all the detritus I noted above. But, alas, we are human. When I feel really concerned, I think of Venuste Nyongabo, the 5000 meter champion from 1996, the first champion from his country, Burundi, which was in a civil war in 1995 and not much better in 1996. Venuste won the World Champs 1,500m in 1995, and then, won his country’s first medal in 1996 in the Olympics. He had seen terrible things in his country, but his focus, his hard won victories and his smile afterwards said much to the world.
Athletes like Usain Bolt remind us that sports should be fun. That is what I am looking forward to, August 12-21.
