Bolt From the Ru...

The Olympics is a great event.  17 days of sporting celebration, the like of which will never again be seen in my fine country.  However, YouTube clips don’t last for 17 days – there is always an iconic moment in each games, which is remembered for generations to come, and replayed over and over again.

I’ve been lucky so far.  I was there for the Opening Ceremony, for GB’s first Gold Medal, Ennis’s crowning glory, Farah’s final lap charge, Phelps beating Lochte, Hoy's sixth Gold – all of which will be remembered in many years from now.  But my extent of witnessing the one true global deity of Olympic sport had previously consisted of seeing him carry the Jamaican flag into the Opening Ceremony.

On Thursday night, this all changed.  Enter Usain St Leo Bolt.

A few people have asked me why I bought 200m Final tickets, when 100m Final tickets were achievable.  The answer is simply because I’ve seen 100m races before at Aviva British Grand Prix events, and they consist of a sudden burst of power... “blink and you’ll miss it”... none of them have left an indelible imprint on my memory.  And a certain Mr G*tlin was competing in the 100m, and I had no desire to watch him in action...

I like the 200m a lot.  I put my hand up.  I confess.  It holds more resonance for me than the 100m.  I like the mix of the power burst plus the strategy of conserving energy around the bend versus blasting away the opposition.

The 1996 Olympics in Atlanta were the only Games to take place in my college years (i.e. I watched pretty-much every second of them on the TV), and are generally considered in a negative light, both for their overall organisation, and for Great Britain’s sub-standard results.  One indelible imprint on my memory, however, is from those Games, when I stayed up until 4am one night to watch Michael Johnson run the 200m Final.  Johnson ran the race in 19.32 seconds that day, and, 16 years on, I still remember my “wow” reaction to seeing 19.32 appear on the scoreboard (or something of a slightly stronger Anglo Saxon connotation of “wow”, anyway).

And so, to last night.  Bolt is a tall man, 6’5” officially.  From my viewpoint in the 67th row of the far stand, he looked to be a 10-foot tall Colossus... rising head and shoulders above the other runners to charge around the opening bend, leaving the others in his wake, and striding like a true champion down the home straight, to Olympic glory.  And then I turned my eyes to the right to see the time.  19.32 again, 16 years on!  “wow” again! (Anglo Saxon variant again!)

A couple of pictures below.  My humblest of apologies for the first one where I got horrendous camera shake.  Although you can still recognise the pose of the great man.  The second picture is better, if less iconic, showing the Jamaican 1-2-3.

And, yes, I recorded the race, for posterity.  Here goes:

Now, the title of this article is the rather oblique “Bolt From the Ru”, which is in reference to David Rudisha’s stunning 800m Gold Medal and World Record.  I remember reading a BBC article about Rudisha a few days ago, where he was described as “The Greatest Athlete You’ve never heard of”.  Of course, I’ve heard of him... indeed I think I uploaded a video to my Twitter/Facebook of his last World Record a couple of years ago.  I was pleased to see him listed on the agenda for last night, but... oh my goodness... was I surprised by what he delivered!!

I know how Rudisha runs races - he sprints from the start, and never eases up - and I commented early on the second lap that “he’s gone”. Now, World Records don’t fall in Olympic Finals... the Finals are always “true run races” (to use the Brendan Foster-ism).  A World Record can only be set if a pacemaker is used to dictate every second of the speed.  Right?

Wrong.

Rudisha’s sub-101-second performance was iconic too.  I know that the Bolt final will get more airtime, and will be remembered by more people, but to sporting connoisseurs like me, the Rudisha run leaves just as strong an imprint.