Featured Image Credit: Ready Set Go podcast
Topics: Usain Bolt, Jamaica, Athletics, Olympics
Jack Kenmare
Topics: Usain Bolt, Jamaica, Athletics, Olympics
Usain Bolt has revealed that he "never forgot" about an incident in which a rival sprinter went to extreme lengths to try and "intimidate" him before a race.
Throughout his career, the fastest man in history engaged in a number of iconic rivalries. Yohan Blake and Asafa Powell, who were the two fastest men in history over 100 metres at the time of the Beijing 2008 Olympics, gave Bolt a run for his money.
American sprinter Tyson Gay is said to have "hated his guts" when they raced against each other. "He just really gets upset, because every time he runs fast, I run faster than he does," Bolt told BBC Radio 5 Live in 2010.
But arguably his biggest rivalry involved Justin Gatlin, the New York-born sprinter who made his mark at the very start of Bolt's career.
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“I remember the first time I competed with Justin, he spat across my lane, the first time I met him," Bolt said on the High Performance podcast. “We were in, I think it was Zagreb, and we were competing.
“You know when you warm up and you're running out of your blocks? I was walking back and he was walking towards me, and he kind of spat across the lane in front of me.”
More than two decades later and Bolt was reunited with Gatlin on a recent episode of the Ready Set Go podcast, when the spitting incident was brought up by podcast host and former 100m sprinter Rodney Green.
Green began the segment by asking Bolt: “Is it true? Did he spit in your lane?”
After Gatlin claimed he "didn't even know" if he spat or not, Bolt replied: “It was our first race together and I never forgot it."
He added: “I understood why. Remember, Justin was in the era of Maurice Green and all these guys. That’s what he is used to. That’s the mentality. So when you come back and you see these guys chilling, you won’t want to be anybody’s friend.
“For me, it was funny. Because I understood in track and field how it is. I know he’s not going to come back and start running fast; it’s going to take him a while to get going.
“I wasn’t worried. We were running the first race in Zagreb and I’ll never forget; I ran, and he’s coming back and he’s walking, he spat across my lane, and I looked up and I smiled because I understood he was just trying to intimidate me, but I wasn’t worried."
Green then turned to Gatlin. “So you did spit in this man’s lane," he said. "Did you apologise for spitting in his lane?”
Gatlin responded: “I apologise. The thing is, for me, I’m so focused. I don’t even think in that moment I was thinking about doing those little petty trickery things, you know what I’m saying? I’m thinking, I got allergies.”
“I’m constantly trying to get my mouth clear so I can go run with my sinuses," he added. "It was never an ‘F Usain Bolt’ sort of thing. It was the fact I think I was just trying to focus on getting ready for my race. But I can say now that I helped contribute to the greatness (of Bolt).
“When I saw it in the documentary, everybody always came back to me and said, how dare you do that to him, I’m like bro, I didn’t do anything.”
Bolt would soon put an end to the segment. He smiled and said: “Relax people, relax.”