The man charged with turning Usain Bolt into an A-League threat
USAIN Bolt will rarely sprint more than seven metres for the Central Coast Mariners. Think about that.
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USAIN Bolt will rarely sprint more than seven metres for the Central Coast Mariners.
Think about that.
Consider too how at the end of those runs, the Jamaican megastar will then have to decelerate — stopping on, say, a 10c piece — while also trapping the ball with his boot and, in one touch, moving it on.
Then, Bolt will need to do it again.
And again.
Up to 80 times per game.
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None of which the world’s fastest man is used to.
Nor anything like the type of athleticism that created his haul of Olympic golds, world records and net worth of $50 million.
“Which is why Usain Bolt’s celebrity isn’t the most interesting part of this story,” Mariners Head of Performance Andrew Young said on Sunday.
“The most interesting thing, and certainly the most unique, is his transfer from Olympic sprinter to footballer.
“It really is a wonderful challenge.”
While he may be unknown to most Australian sports fans, The Daily Telegraph can today out Young as the man who will be working exclusively with Bolt over the next eight weeks on a task football analysts have put somewhere between immense and impossible — transforming the world’s fastest man into an A-League threat.
Joining the Mariners in June, Young boasts a stellar CV that not only includes time with English Premier League club Fulham, Blackburn Rovers and the Socceroos, but working relationships with the likes of Tim Cahill, Harry Kewell, Andy Cole and former Roma star Vincenzo Montella.
Most recently, the performance guru has spent two years working in Asia, while also boasting experience with the Adelaide Crows, Canberra Raiders, Tennis Australia, even V8 Supercars.
So seriously are the Mariners taking Project Bolt, Young will now work 24/7 on the sprinter’s transformation.
And to free him up for the task, the club has also now employed a second performance specialist, former Australian Rugby Sevens program head Nick Poulos, to help oversee the rest of the squad.
“So we’ve beefed up our staff to deal with this,” Young said. “Nick’s an expert in load monitoring. He’ll be helping me with Usain while also working closely with the main group as well.”
Young and Bolt met for the first time on Sunday afternoon and talked through his training plan. The new Mariners recruit also attended a trial game at Pluim Park, albeit as a spectator.
As part of Project Bolt, the Olympic great will wake every morning and file a range of measures — like sleep, body fatigue and muscle soreness — into an iPhone app, which is then sent straight to Young for analysis.
The 31-year-old will also be jumping each day on a force plate, for fatigue measures, and running once a week on a heart-rate recovery test.
Quizzed on the overhaul of Bolt, Young continued: “When Usain sprints, he usually hits his peak speed around 60 or 70 metres.
“But the average sprint in the English Premier League is seven metres.
“In football too, you’re playing and training in tight areas. So the real the load (on the body) comes from continually accelerating and decelerating.
“We had a game last week where one of our players did 80 decelerations. So it’s not so much him learning to decelerate (quickly) as being exposed to that volume of decelerations.”
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