Usain Bolt of Jamaica at the 2002 IAAF World Junior Championships in Kingston (© Getty Images)
Continuing our preview of the forthcoming IAAF World Junior Championships in Grosseto, remember how Usain Bolt got 35,000 fans to their feet when winning the 200m gold in Kingston 2002. Bolt has since won the World Youth Championships 200m World title and equalled the 200m World Junior record. He now aims at yet another World Junior title in Grosseto.
Winning in style
Kingston National stadium literally erupted when Jamaica’s Usain Bolt won the 200m final at the 2002 World Junior Championships. Paul Burrowes talked to the teenager who became the youngest ever World junior champion
Jamaica’s young sprint prodigy, Usain Bolt, born in Trelawny, a rural area in the island’s west is at the top of his class.
The tall, lanky 15-year-old, weaned in the Caribbean island well-known for producing some of the world’s top sprinters including Merlene Ottey and Donald Quarrie, exudes supreme confidence.
His trademark salute at the end of each race at the 2002 World Junior Championships in Kingston highlights his confidence, patriotism as well as his delight at pleasing spectators.
Truly, he seems to be following the steps of Jamaica’s outsanding Olympians in the 200m, which includes Herb McKenley, Leslie Laing, Michael Fray, and the best of them all over the distance, Quarrie himself.
The aptly named Bolt set the world age group (15-year-olds) record in the 200m when he posted 20.58 at the World Junior Championships on 18 July 2002 after easing up at the finish line. He broke the previous world 15-year-old record of 20.82 set by Trinidadian Darrel Brown on 4 March 2000 in Port of Spain.
Asked what he does in his spare time, Bolt says: “Remember I am just a kid and I do what all kids do, ‘go out and play’.”
He plays soccer, toys with basketball, but takes athletics ‘seriously’ with some amount of fun.
The Under-17 Carifta Games and Central America and Caribbean (CAC) Junior Champion this year, Bolt has improved by leaps and bounds.
The 1.95m tall athlete has surged from a 21.81 clocking for the 200m in 2001 to 20.58 at the beginning of 2002.
When he struck gold in the 200m at the World Junior Championships on 19 July 2002 he became the youngest male champion ever at this level.
He was 15 years 332 days old, eclipsing Kenya’s Jonah Birir who was 16 years 215 days when he won the 800m at the 1988 World Juniors.
Bolt also helped Jamaica generate national junior records in both the 4x100m and 4x400m relays at the World Junior Championships.
Competing in both relays on the same day, each just over one hour apart, Bolt ensured Jamaica’s sprint relay team clocked the third fastest junior time ever of 39.15 and the fourth fastest time ever in the mile relay of 3:04.06.
And he is just getting started. Quarrie, the 1976 Montreal Olympic 200m champion, who witnessed Bolt’s performance in Kingston, described him as “an exceptional talent”.
“He has good potential and he’s in good hands. I am hoping that he will be able to develop not just physically, but mentally as well, as far as the future is concerned,” Quarrie said. According to Quarrie, winner of six Commonwealth gold medals in the 100 and 200m, including the relays, from 1970-78, no other 15-year-old has impressed him as much.
“For his age and to be running these times shows great promise. The faster you are the more dedicated you have to be as times do not come down very fast. He could run excellently in both the 200 and 400m,” Quarrie pointed out.
In the 400m, where he is also both 2002 CAC and Carifta Games champion, Bolt best time so far is 47.12 seconds. But he has expressed disappointment at not being able to run under 47 seconds. A student of William Knibb High School, named after a Baptist pastor involved in the slavery abolition movement in the early 19th century, Bolt is being wooed by prominent high schools in the capital city of Kingston. But he is remaining at his old school for now.
“Sometimes I really wonder why I am so fast,” Bolt says. “I can go even faster, I can do better, and sometimes I can’t slow down because I am going too fast,” he claims. His speed has apparently given him a big appetite but fortunately he is still growing and weight is as yet not a problem.
“I eat like a horse. I don’t even know how I do it. I don’t stick to a strict diet like most other athletes. It’s not a problem for me because I still perform,” says he.
Feature published in IAAF Magazine Issue 3 - 2002