Featured Image Credit: Getty
Topics: Usain Bolt, Athletics, Olympics
Luke Davies
Usain Bolt once admitted that he ‘hated’ once race and even feared competing in it during his sprinting career.
Bolt, 38, is the fastest man of all time and still holds the 100 and 200m world records – with times of 9.58 and 19.19 seconds – both of which he set at the 2009 IAAF World Athletics Championships in Berlin, Germany.
His medal haul includes eight Olympic gold medals – formerly nine before he was stripped of the 4x100m relay gold from 2008 due to a teammate failing a drug test.
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But there was one event which Bolt never truly mastered and even abandoned due to him ‘hating’ training for it.
Despite competing in the 400m throughout his time as a junior, the Jamaican decided to stop running the distance even though this was against his coach’s wishes at the time.
Speaking on Ready Set Go earlier this year, Bolt explained: “We were talking about what we needed to do, and he said I needed to get into the gym, and I also needed to run another event.
“I was like, 'Coach, I’m not doing 400 metres', and he said, 'No, you have to do 400 metres because it’s going to help your 200 metres'.
"I said, 'Alright, let’s make a bet. Let me run one 100 metres; if I run fast, I run 100 metres; if I run slow, I run the 400 metres.
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"But he thought I was going to run slow.
“I’ll never forget that Wallace Spearmon and I were actually in that race in Greece. Wallace and I were talking, and we said if I can just get 10.1 seconds, I think that’s quick enough.
“He said, 'If you can run 10.1, that’s excellent'. I ran 10.3. Then it was 9.8, 9.7—you know what I mean; everybody was running a regular 9.9. It wasn’t consistent."
Bolt added: "If I had run 10.2, I would be running 400 metres."
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The legendary sprinter then explained how he “would have been good” at the 400m distance but ‘hated’ the training.
The Jamaican elaborated on his reasons by saying: “The only reason is I just never wanted to run the 400 metres. I didn’t care about anything, but the fear of the 400 metres, I just didn’t want to do it.
“The 200 is my favourite, I love it. When I started running, I used to run 100 metres, but I was so slow out of the blocks, I would never make it through the semi-finals.”