Sprinter who 'truly rattled' Usain Bolt after beating him in 200m race vanished from athletics
Usain Bolt has admitted it still "hurts to this day" that he never got the chance to exact revenge on a sprinter who beat him at a 200m event.
The 38-year-old Jamaican, who is widely regarded as the greatest sprinter of all time, remains the world record holder in the 100 metres and 200 metres – more than 15 years after the history-making feat.
Over the years, Bolt has beaten some seriously tough competition. Justin Gatlin, Tyson Gay and Wallace Spearmon were all defeated; not to mention fellow countryman Asafa Powell and Yohan Blake.
But what about Xavier Carter, the American sprinter who once clocked the second fastest 200-metre time in history in July 2006?
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Speaking on the Ready Set Go podcast alongside Justin Gatlin and Rodney Green, Bolt recalled a race against Carter in 2007 at an event in Zurich that left him fuming.
Bolt started the conversation by reminiscing about a phone call from an unknown number telling them it was ‘X’, who eventually revealed it was Xavier Carter.
In fact, Carter told Bolt's friend Wallace Spearmon that he was going to "tear their a***s up".
Carter proceeded to win the race, and in doing so looked back and pulled out an 'X' sign with his arms.
“It hurts me to the core to this day because I never got the chance to beat him back, I never got the chance, to the core bro,” Bolt said.
“I’ll never forget we came back from the championship and he’s [Carter] been training there for a couple of weeks, he was ready, and he [Spearmon] goes ‘you’re tired’ and I said ‘no I’m good’ and he said ‘you don’t know you’re tired but you’re tired’ I said ‘I’m ready bro’.
“I pulled up to the race and I’m running and thinking ‘yo I am tired!’ you can tell when your body’s like ‘na’.
"He goes [and wins]. I was pissed, and then the next race I decided I wasn’t running because I was dead. I said to him [Spearmon], ‘if you don’t beat him I’m gonna kick your ass’. If you don’t beat Xavier I’m gonna kick your ass.
“I was pissed and I never got to race him again after that, never. He beat me last and I was pissed.”
Carter became the first man since the legendary Jesse Owens to win in four events at the NCAA championships, running the 100 metres, 400 metres and the relays at both distances for Louisiana State in 2006.
But a year later, his career was derailed by a series of injuries. Carter eventually missed out on the opportunity to run at the 2008 Summer Olympics in Beijing and never competed on the world stage again.
Topics: Usain Bolt, Jamaica, Athletics
Jack Kenmare