In working on the site tomorrow, I just came across a good read from London's The Telegraph. The article is by Michael Johnson and in it he names Usain Bolt as his athlete of the year. The article is worth reading in its entirety but I particularly liked his simple explanation as to why Bolt celebrated in the middle of the 100m. According to Johnson, Bolt simply was doing something that we'd all do and what all Olympic champions do:
From 30-55m, he opened up a two metre gap. He pressed with 100 per cent effort for another 10 metres and added another couple of metres.
At which point he did something that many people still can't understand and which cost him an opportunity to take the world record under 9.6sec. He stopped running and started celebrating.
I have explained many times why he did this and it's simple. Every athlete in Olympic sports wants to win an Olympic gold medal. Once they win, they celebrate. Most athletes in track know after they have crossed the finish line.
Bolt had won his first Olympic gold medal, 60m into the 100m final. And if winning the 100m final just over half way through wasn't enough, he still broke the world record by three hundredths of a second.
According to MJ, Bolt just won way before most people win. I tend to agree. I mean the Olympic marathon champ often enjoys the whole last lap.
Your thoughts?
The full article is here:
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/sport/othersports/athletics/3850944/Usain-Bolt-the-undisputed-champion.html