Usain Bolt: Barely a dry eye in the house for sprint legend’s farewell

This was the Usain Bolt we had never seen before.

Two young fans join Usain Bolt on the track as he bids farewell at the IAAF World Athletics Championships in London.

This was the Usain Bolt we had never seen before: tears welling in his eyes as he ambled firstly to the start line of the 200m and then the 100m, crouching down, crossing himself and looking skywards.

These were intimate private moments amid the most public and noisy of send-offs: 55,000 people, including two little boys who spontaneously ran out and hugged his legs, had ignored the last trains home to remain in the stadium and say goodbye to the most glorious showman and stupendous sprinter of all time.

There was no bouncing, jigging or braggadocio by Bolt, which only added to the solemnity of the occasion as he completed a slow and poignant final lap of the London Stadium, the 2012 scene of some of his legendary feats, clapping and bowing to the fans.

For a long time it seemed Bolt would not even produce his trademark signature, the Lightning Bolt pose, but of course, he had saved it for just one last time, on the finish line.

At this point his decade of dominance, the jaw-dropping world records, the sensational Olympic and world championship gold medals simply coalesced into a thunderous roar of appreciation and love, and more than a few tears by those in the stands.

Soon after when The Australian asked Bolt what he was thinking as he deliberately approached the 200m and then 100m start lines, he admitted to much emotion: “I was saying goodbye to fans and saying goodbye to my events also, my two events that I dominated for years and I was saying goodbye. I almost cried, almost, I was close, I was saying goodbye to my events.’’

Bolt had not wanted his farewell to be this way. He had envisioned a blaze of glory send-off with one last 100m gold medal and then anchoring the Jamaican relay team to another. But he was third in the 100m, beaten by his old nemesis Justin Gatlin and the young gun Christian Coleman, and then in a dramatic and sad ­finale, crumpled to the track in agony during the relay final.

His left hamstring — cold from the chilly London air and the delayed start to the race — couldn’t cope with the acceleration Bolt was demanding.

“What can we do, we had to follow the rules,’’ Bolt said of the moment he challenged officials about the inordinate length of time they were being held behind the hoardings while two medal presentations took place. The first, the 5000m, was unusually long because organisers had indulged local distance hero Mo Farah to allow his wife and children onto the podium for some happy snaps.

“It has been a rough couple of days for me,’’ said Bolt, who turns 31 next week. He admitted that these championships had been full of surprises, including his own.

“I think the whole championships has seen bad luck for certain athletes,’’ he said. “It has been a surprising championships with lots of shocks. It is just the championships, not to do with me personally. I am always going to leave everything on the track. Everything happens for a reason; I don’t know why it happened but it has.’’

Bolt had wanted to remain unbeatable and he has had a couple of days to revise what his legacy to the sport will be. But he insists that now he has retired he will not return to the track. He has seen too many retire and come back into the sport and “make it worse’’.

But he has drawn parallels with one of his own sporting heroes, Muhammad Ali, who ended his boxing career in a similar way.

Bolt said: “One championship doesn’t change what I’ve done. After losing the 100m someone said to me, ‘Muhammad Ali lost his last fight so don’t be too stressed’. I have shown my credentials throughout my career so losing my last race isn’t going to change what I’ve done in my sport.