Rio Olympics 2016: Usain Bolt races to the rescue of a sport in despair

Champion feeling: Usain Bolt surges to victory in the 100m final
(Ezra Shaw/Getty Images)
Simon Barnes15 August 2016

At 2.30 this morning I shared a sigh of relief with the world: a deep, shattering, soul-wrenching thing that seemed to be dragged up from the guts of the planet. Not ‘Hurrah’ but ‘Thank God’. I didn’t want to dance as I did — and he did — in Beijing. I didn’t want to cheer as I did in London. I just felt slightly sick, but in a good way, as if some appallingly difficult task had been accomplished.

Last night, Usain Bolt won the men’s 100 metres for the third Olympic Games in a row: never been done before, perhaps never will again. But never mind all that personal stuff: once again, and more than ever, it’s a symbolic thing. It’s about the way one man continually saves the world from disaster. Well, sport anyway.

Bolt has never failed a drugs test and yet he has run faster than any human has ever done before. He has continued, in one Games after another, to prove himself the fastest man in the world: the proudest title that sport can hand out.

But how close it was, in this, his last Olympics. We’re accustomed to his sluggish start, he never has been able to start, there’s so much of his giant self to get into action. Normally he is over that by 30 metres and everybody else is trailing. Not this time.

This time Bolt was only half-a-dozen strides from the end before he was the clear leader. For those preceding 80-plus metres he didn’t look like sport’s great soldier of righteousness: he looked like a human being. He looked like a great athlete seeking to defy not his opponents but time itself; he will turn 30 next year.

He was a metre and a half down at one stage: and to whom? Only the twice-banned and loudly-booed Justin Gatlin. Gatlin really did nailed his start and it looked for most of nine-and-a-bit seconds of the race as if he was at last going to have his revenge on all the clean athletes of the world.

But then the familiar ground-eating strides began to tell and the inexorable Bolt surge was taking place yet again — and for all that it was fearfully late, it was too much for everybody else.

So we were treated to a last gorgeous memory of Bolt’s joyous arrogance, for he could afford to slow down and celebrate before he reached the line: two strides that floated rather than powered and a double-chest-thump that seemed like a celebration of all the good things in sport.

The first third of Bolt’s 2016 mission is accomplished. That adds up to seven golds in a lifetime already won and perhaps nine before the week is out. Maybe by then we’ll be able to celebrate him as an individual athlete.

But now, with the most important part of the job done, it is his symbolic role that matters. Who could have thought that eight years after astonishing us in Beijing we would need him more than ever? Who would have thought that the drugs problem in sport would get worse, not better?

In Beijing he rescued sport from cynicism: in Rio he has rescued sport from despair. The International Olympic Committee has taken the stance that state-sponsored doping is perfectly acceptable in certain sports, after Russia’s contempt for the notion of clean sport was revealed.

We can look back over the last three Olympics and ask how many Russian medals were the result of lies and cheating and wonder if the entire sporting world has been destroyed. But in such melodramatic scenarios, we always look for a superhero to save the day: and three times in a row Bolt has played that part with joy.

Hercules, Beowulf, King Arthur, Robin Hood, Superman: Bolt is of the same lineage. It’s a hell of a load to carry but that’s been his job across three Games. So who will be there to take it on? A frightening thought: but for now let’s get over those sighs of relief. Time to start cheering.

All hail the pioneers who have made possible Britain’s golden era in

(Alex Livesey/Getty Images)

Britain used to be a laughing-stock when it came to gymnastics. Hopeless. Not even at the races.

The idea of competing at Olympic level was absurd. Gymnastics is a sport that combines courage with beauty in an utterly compelling mix, but it was a sporting Eden from which Britain had long ago been expelled.

It was a sport that rang with exotic names: Ludmilla Turischeva, Olga Korbut, Nadia Comaneci. But astonishingly, last night the homely name of Max Whitlock was added to the list as he won two gold medals within an hour, taking the floor and then the pommel horse. This goes with his bronze in the all-around contest.

Whitlock is a precise and controlled gymnast, a man of accuracy rather than flair. He mixed multiple twists with pinpoint landings to take the floor, and then created a perfect man-as-machine illusion to win on the pommels. It was a joy to watch.

I have always loved this sport, and absurdly I feel as if I have created this triumph out of my own longing. It is now unquestionably the case that Britain is a force in gymnastics, but I know where the real credit lies.

In recent years, British performances have improved dramatically in a number of sports, sports in which we were once second-rater or worse. And a crucial part of the process that makes this improvement is the pioneer: the athlete that first shows the world that British athletes can be contenders in a discipline in which they had never done much before.

So, as we celebrate the medal-winners of the Rio Games, British gymnastics must give thanks to Dan Keatings and Beth Tweddle, the pioneers. In the same way, dressage must thank Carl Hester, who is still hard at it.

It’s an established pattern: Sir Steve Redgrave in rowing, Sir Chris Hoy in track cycling.

It’s a special kind of sporting triumph: not only to achieve great things but to make great things possible for those that follow.

Salute the pioneers, then: and never forget them as we cheer those that follow.

Create a FREE account to continue reading

eros

Registration is a free and easy way to support our journalism.

Join our community where you can: comment on stories; sign up to newsletters; enter competitions and access content on our app.

Your email address

Must be at least 6 characters, include an upper and lower case character and a number

You must be at least 18 years old to create an account

* Required fields

Already have an account? SIGN IN

By clicking Create Account you confirm that your data has been entered correctly and you have read and agree to our Terms of use , Cookie policy and Privacy policy .

This site is protected by reCAPTCHA and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply.

Thank you for registering

Please refresh the page or navigate to another page on the site to be automatically logged in