From a pet cheetah to blasting Chris Gayle for six, here’s what you didn’t know about Usain Bolt
WE ALL know about Usain Bolt’s world records and gold medals, but did you know he’s bowled Chris Gayle (video) and has never run a full mile? Here are 10 facts you won’t know.
WE ALL know about Usain Bolt’s world records and gold medals, but did you know he’s bowled out Chris Gayle and has never run a full mile?
Here are 10 facts you won’t know about the Olympic legend.
1. YOU’RE KIDDING
He won his first 100m gold with his shoe laces undone, and broke the world record in the process.
2. BUSINESSMAN BOLT
Our current patrons are in for the surprise of their life. Guess who's home!!! @usainbolt #TracksAndRecords pic.twitter.com/h2ePkKZZd6
— UB's Tracks&Records (@UBTandR) September 30, 2015
He owns a restaurant back in Jamaica – Track and Records.
3. HE RUNS THE 100 BECAUSE HE’S ‘LAZY’
Bolt’s pet event always has been and always will be the 200m sprint. He added the 100m to his program after seven seasons in the sport. His coach Glen Mills tried to make Bolt contest the 400m, but Bolt refused because he was too lazy. After begging Mills to allow him to avoid the 400m, Mills created a wager. If Bolt could break the Jamaican national 200m record he could attempt the 100m. From there, he had to run quicker than 10.30 in his first attempt at the event.
“My ass was safe. I’d won with a time so quick I knew I’d never have to run the 400m again.” Four races later he broke the world record.
Bolt claims to have never run a full mile - ever.
4. RUM AND NUGGETS
.@usainbolt has already found the McDonald's at the Athletes' Village in #Rio:https://t.co/F75ohcTAqf pic.twitter.com/QFgAliJmNg
— CanadianRunning (@CanadianRunning) August 7, 2016
He’s backed off a lot of the bad stuff in the lead-up to the Games in Rio, but here’s what Bolt said about his diet:
“I haven’t had any KFC for about four months, which is killing me but it’s got to be done. I’ve tried my hardest to bribe my chef but my team have been clever and hired someone who not only is not bribable, but who chases me round the house and makes sure I eat what he’s cooked and he lays out my vitamin pills and supplements in front of me so I can’t ‘forget’ to take them.
“I’ve backed off hard liquor too—rum and that stuff—but I still drink Guinness, or a Heineken or two. A guy’s got to have something, right?”
Bolt ate around 1000 nuggets in 10 days at the Beijing Olympics. That equates to roughly 4,700 calories worth of Chicken McNuggets each day.
5.ANIMAL LOVER
He has a pet cheetah named Lightning Bolt that he adopted for £10,000 ($17,000). He pays £2,300 ($4,000) upkeep to have it looked after in an orphanage in Nairobi.
6. CRICKET AND FOOTBALL CRAZY
“I have to be a sportsman, that’s all I know how to do,” Bolt said.
“If I wasn’t a runner I would either be a Test match cricketer or would be playing for Manchester United or Real Madrid. I could have excelled in both cricket and football no problem.”
A highlight for Bolt was bowling out West Indian star Chris Gayle in a charity match, where he later hit the master-blaster for six!
7. HE’S PUFFED A JOINT, AS JAMAICANS DO
“When you’re a child in Jamaica, you learn how to roll a joint. Everyone tried marijuana, including me, but I was really young. People can say what they want, I know I’m clean. That’s the only thing that counts, not what other people say.”
8.LUCKY TO BE ALIVE
Bolt began his autobiography with the story of a life-threatening crash he was involved in when rolling his BMW three times in Jamaica in 2009. Following the accident, Bolt was taken to hospital where shards of glass were removed from his feet by doctors. Bolt was anaesthetised from the waste down during the process.
“Oh crap, nothing in my d***,” Bolt wrote. “My knees were good, my thighs too. Please, God, there’s nothing in my d***, Nothing…
“My hips. What the hell is going on with my d***?
“When a flash of feeling came around, I breathed a huge sigh of relief. Forget the car crash — a numb crotch was probably the most stressful situation I’d experienced in my entire life.”
9. AGAINST THE ODDS
He suffers from scoliosis, an abnormality in the curvature of the spine.
10.BOLT V GATLIN: HOW IT BEGAN
Two-time drug cheat Justin Gatlin has struck up a tense rivalry with Bolt in recent years since being banned from athletics twice.
The pair first met at a meet in Zagreb in 2011. Gatlin made sure the Olympic champion was well aware of his presence.
“As we stretched and did our stride-outs from the blocks, he looked across at me, stared me down and spat in my lane,” Bolt wrote in his autobiography Faster than Lightning.
“I couldn’t believe it, I laughed my ass off — it was too funny.
“’I’m running 9.60, and he thinks I’m gonna be scared because he’s spitting in my lane? Wow, he must be the dumbest kid in the world.”
Surprise, surprise, Bolt went on to win the race.
Originally published as From a pet cheetah to blasting Chris Gayle for six, here’s what you didn’t know about Usain Bolt
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