British sprinter who ran faster than Usain Bolt aged 14 now lives a much different life 12 years on

In February 2013, a 14-year-old sprinter from Nottingham learned that he was faster than Usain Bolt at the same age.

In a race of the fastest 14-year-olds across Europe, Ryan Gorman ran a time of 21.76 seconds in the 200 metres event at that year’s England Under-17 Indoor Championships - making him five hundredths quicker than the Jamaican when he was the same age.

By that point, Bolt was already a five-time Olympic champion and his world records for 100 and 200 metres still stand together.

But nobody - not even Gorman - had any idea that he had run faster than the sprinting legend until days after the event.

Speaking exclusively to SPORTbible, Gorman recalled: “A lot of people, a lot of coaches, they said, ‘That’s quick’. I didn’t realise, I was oblivious as to how quick it was.

“It must have been about two or three days afterwards, as a lot of people did take quite a lot of interest when I ran it. Someone got in touch to say, ‘We’ve done a bit of research and it’s actually faster than Usain Bolt’.

“I was like, in my head, ‘That can’t be true. He’s the world’s fastest man. He must have had some crazy record when he was younger’.

“It’s something to say, when people think you’re actually faster than the fastest man in the world. But obviously at the age of 14.”

If you type Gorman’s name into Google, you’ll find several images of a 14-year-old at his local athletics club, an image of him with his mother, father and brother, and a comparison photo side-by-side with Bolt at that age.

Understandably at the time, his confidence sky-rocketed.

A year later, while still competing at U17 level, he ran a personal best of 21.49 at the Sainsbury’s School Games, and he finally went under the 21-second barrier in 2015 at a meeting in Poland.

The improvements kept on coming.

“In 2016, I was running consistently under 21 seconds,” he says. “I knew I had qualification for the world juniors, which went brilliant. But unfortunately I came down with quite a bad sickness between the heats and the semi-final, so I didn’t run particularly great in the semi-final.

“After that, all I wanted to do was keep consistent and improving, and work towards something slightly bigger than the world juniors. Not necessarily the Olympics, but the Diamond League or something like that.

“I was quite level-headed in my training. I ate well, my training was consistent, so I trusted in that whole process to get me to where I’d like to be.”

The world junior event Gorman refers to, which took place in Bydgoszcz, Poland, saw Gorman run a time of 20.84 in his heat.

In the semi-final, he ran a marginally slower 20.91, which meant he missed out on the final by just 0.01 of a second.

Then, after a promising start to his 2017 season, which again saw Gorman hover around the low 21-second mark for 200 metres, he was brought down to earth.

The Englishman suffered a torn hamstring, and spent months recovering before he could step on to the track again.

He recovered and started to get back towards his old pace, running a personal best in the 60 metres by the end of 2017.

But disaster then struck, as he tore his hamstring for a second time.

He explains: “The second time it happened, it wasn’t as bad as the first one. But mentally, for about three years after it happened, I was still trying to get back to where I wanted.

“I just couldn’t get past my injury, mentally. Physically, I was absolutely fine. I could run a race. But I could feel my hamstring was going to go. And I still can’t get past that fear of tearing it again.”

Gorman continued running until 2022 in the hope of getting back to his best form - and the confidence of being able to run a race without that fear.

However, he eventually decided to step back from the track entirely.

That decision was made after, he says, lengthy discussions with his family, who could see the mental impact athletics was having on his life.

“It took my mum and now wife to sit me down and say, ‘Look, we’ve got something to think about’.

“At that point, I was so obsessed with getting back to where I wanted to but disappointing myself in the process, that I was just getting more and more depressed about things.

“They sat me down and my mum said, ‘We’ve got to figure something out here. Because at this point, athletics is not happy or healthy’.

“It took me a long time, a few years, to wrap my head around it. To go, ‘I’ve got a young family now and I need to support them, I need to accept that my athletics career is not going to carry myself and my family to where we want to, financially’.”

Since that frank discussion, Gorman has never returned to competitive athletics - or even touched a running track in general. His last recorded race was back in 2022.

Now 25, he has not yet given up his dream of competing in another sport professionally. But even that has come with its ups and severe downs.

“I tried a bit of rugby sevens, but unfortunately I did tear my hamstring again in 2023,” he admitted. “So again, that just reiterated the fear of doing fast sports.

“Now, I don’t really compete in any sport, or train for a sport as such. That fear just kind of takes over a bit. For me now, it’s just about focusing on gym, going strong over that and hopefully mentally preparing myself for If I do want to go into a sport.”

And Gorman is keen to educate other people that are in a similar situation to himself about injuries and how to cope with them, both physically and mentally.

“I’ve got 10 years of experience, cardio, skeletal. And I’ve got a degree in sports therapy, so I combine all of that together,” he explains.

“Funnily enough, I had three people today from work asking me to help them train and get some sort of fitness.

“I think the sport experience that I’ve had, the level I competed at, it comes together and gives a lot of people a bit of confidence that I might actually know what I’m doing!

“I’ve also got the mental experience as well. I’ve got my own personal experiences. I can relate to people - I can say ‘I’ve had that injury, I know what to do, I know how it works for me, or how to speak to somebody about an injury’.

“To me, the injury physically is easy to repair. But mentally, it’s really difficult. And I, for one, know how difficult it can be, I know that’s my downfall and it’s difficult for me to get past it. But I know how others might feel about it.”