Inside Usain Bolt’s mind: craving a team, or missing the rush?

An all-time great Olympic sprinter is starting from scratch as a wannabe footballer at Central Coast Mariners today.

Usain Bolt on the balcony at the club’s training base at Pluim Park Lisarow with Central Coast Mariners player Kalifa Cisse. Picture: Tim Pascoe

Sachin Tendulkar is in Mumbai. Discussing the complications of his life. Rueing the requirement to constantly curb his behaviour. To bite his tongue. Mind his manners. Be a good Hindi boy. He’s asked to nominate an athlete he’d trade places with for a day. The answer is a surprise. John McEnroe. For the freedom to let it all hang out. To speak fearlessly and openly. To surrender to the multi-layered passions that sports can provide. Just for one day.

Usain Bolt may be living a variation on a similar theme. The wish to be someone else. Either that, according to one of Australia’s leading sports psychologists, Jeff Bond, or the Jamaican is another elite sportsman who doesn’t know what to do with himself in retirement.

The fact is that an all-time great Olympic sprinter is starting from scratch as a wannabe footballer at Central Coast Mariners today. Why, why, why? Perhaps after a lifetime of carrying the loads of pressure and expectation himself, he’s craving a team environment. Going solo is fame-making. It’s also lonely. Individual stars can be insular, pig-headed and obsessive. Bolt’s always been a bit of a people person.

“I think a personality like that would find the team aspect appealing,” says Bond, who’s worked with nine Australian Olympic teams and helped Pat Cash to the Wimbledon title. “To be in a position where he can achieve again, where he can have new goals, where he can get back to the excitement and adrenaline.

“For athletes who are on the more extroverted end of the personality-type continuum, I think those athletes who gravitate into individual sports can be quite successful. Typically they’re introverts in individual sports. I don’t think you’d call Usain Bolt an introvert, so he’s probably been, in some respects, a square peg in a round hole from a personality standpoint, and so a team sport may well suit him.

“Individual athletes can lead a very lonely lifestyle, especially when they’re dominant and the rest of the world is trying to beat them. But I think when you’ve got someone who has a tendency to be a bit outgoing and sociable and people-focused, then a team sport is going to be quite attractive to him.”

Either that, or Bolt’s life is hopelessly empty without sport.

“I reckon some of it has to do with it being hard for an athlete like him to walk away from the limelight and the adrenaline and the competition,” Bond says. “It’s a big thing for an athlete who’s been as successful as him to simply retire. They miss a lot of the structures around sport. They miss the adulation. They miss the rush that comes from competing and challenging themselves. They miss all of it.

“To turn to another sport is a risky thing to do but I can understand the basic motivation because when you’re used to breaking world records and winning Olympic gold medals and those sorts of things, you want to keep achieving in some way. And if you’re not set up in an alternate career path, like the corporate world or the business sector, then sport is something you’re still familiar with.

“He comes from a culture where round-ball football is king, and so it doesn’t surprise me if it’s always been on his mind. Why wouldn’t you have a crack?”

Bolt has done this merry dance before. Most recently, in May, he chased a contract with Norway’s Stromsgodet club. From 40-odd kilometres outside of Oslo to 90-odd kilometres out of Sydney, he’s travelling to the ends of the earth to become a footballer.

He came off the bench for the final 20 minutes of a trial between Stromsgodet and the Norway under-19s. It did not go well. He repeatedly lost possession. Wearing the number 9.58 on his back in a cringeworthy recognition of his 100m world record and the real reason he was there, he was in prime position for a header that would have levelled the scores at 1-1. He missed.

Stromsgodet decided that not even the marketing gold of signing Bolt was worth the cost of having him on the field. He was told thanks, but no thanks, and his search continued for a franchise that would take him on.

Bolt finished his athletics career by saying: “For me, if I could get to play for Manchester United, that would be like a dream come true. Yes, that would be epic.”

He left Oslo saying: “Maybe a club somewhere will see something and decide to give me a chance.”

Here’s that club now. Central Coast Mariners. He will put foot to ball today in a training session that will not be open to the public at 10am. It ain’t Old Trafford but beggars cannot be choosers.