End of an Era: Usain Bolt Runs the Last Race of His Career at the IAAF World Championships

After an unfortunate finish in both the 100m and 4x100m relay finals, the greatest sprinter the world has ever seen hung up the track spikes for good in London over the weekend. Usain Bolt, who dominated the fastest events in professional Track and Field for the last decade, bid farewell to the British crowd at the IAAF World Championships Saturday after finishing 3rd in the 100m final and not finishing the last leg of the 4x100m relay final due to a left hamstring injury that forced the face of Jamaican sprinting to collapse onto the track moments after receiving the baton from Yohan Blake.  

The only thing worse than seeing Bolt bow out with such a disappointing performance is realizing that World Championships and Olympics from here on out will be held without the man who single-handedly redefined the sport of sprinting itself. Especially for a Track and Field fan like myself who grew up watching the Olympics during Bolt’s remarkable reign, I can without a doubt say that watching Usain compete was like seeing a god run amongst men. Despite facing the world’s toughest competition, Usain Bolt constantly outperformed anyone he ran against, often winning by landslides, setting WRs and ORs, and even appearing to ease up before winning Gold.

Bolt’s legacy can easily be summed up by his performance in the 2008 Beijing Summer Olympic Games. The only thing that was more impressive than the opening ceremony or Michael Phelp’s inability to finish any event in any place besides 1st was Usain Bolt’s 100m and 200m finals races. During the unforgettable 100m final, Bolt came off the blocks with a slow start, only to quickly explode and take a simply ridiculous lead. In the last 10m, however, it appears that Bolt becomes aware of his guaranteed Gold medal and significantly slows his stride down, beginning to celebrate prematurely. Usain, of course, wins the event, but many speculate that because he eased up towards the end of the race, and also due to the fact that his shoe was also untied during the race, that the Jamaican runner could have easily ran a 9.52 100m race, further crushing the already insane, record breaking 9.69 that he finished with. While some may condemn Bolt for his actions, I think it is a perfect example of how Bolt was light years ahead of any other runner in the world at the time. The fact that Bolt could set records and beat the best sprinters in the world without fully trying showed just how untouchable Usain really was. If the 100m final wasn’t enough, Bolt quickly shocked Olympic fans and sprinters once again in Beijing by winning the 200m final by an even bigger margin and finishing with a 19.30 OR. And if THAT somehow wasn’t enough, the 2008 Olympics was only the starting point of the Gold medal streak where Bolt would win Gold in literally every event (besides the 2011 World Championships 100m final where he DQ’ed) in every World Championship and Olympics from 2008 to 2016.  For about half of my life, Usain Bolt was literally unbeatable.

So after sweeping the 100m, 200m, and 4x100m relays in Rio about a year ago for the third straight Olympics, why is Bolt choosing to retire now? And furthermore, is he retiring too early? When you look at some of the world’s best sprinters and how old they are, it appears that Bolt might be jumping the gun, no pun intended.  For example, Jamaica’s own, Asafa Powell, who was Bolt’s fiercest competitor in Beijing, is 34 now and still competing. Even more shocking, Justin Gatlin, the USA sprinter who beat Bolt yesterday to win Gold in London in the 100m final, is 35. Even Yohan Blake and Bingtian Su, who finished 4th and 8th respectively in the 100m final yesterday behind Bolt, are both 27 and don’t show any signs of bowing out soon. Of course you do have young stars like Christian Coleman, who was actually praised by Usain himself, that are taking the Track and Field world by storm, but besides these select individuals, the powerhouses of the 100m and 200m events have barely changed over the last decade.

So why is the world’s fastest man leaving the track so soon? For starters, a plethora of hamstring injuries, like the one that caused Bolt to drop to the ground in pain during the 4x100m relays final Saturday night, have plagued his career since 2004. Missing weeks at a time to recover in 2006 and 2014 for example have finally caught up to the Jamaican sprinter and will only continue to get worse. Bolt has also gotten slower in both stride and power in the second half of the 100m event. The untouchable, godlike sprinter we saw in 2008 and 2012 looks more sluggish and feasibly beatable now without his unmatched ability to accelerate past competitors. I’d be lying if I said it wasn’t both sad and outright bizarre to see a superhuman like Usain Bolt fall victim to humanlike flaws like age and injury.

But despite looking more vulnerable than ever, Bolt still finished 3rd, only .01 seconds behind Coleman and .03 seconds behind Gatlin. If he wanted to, Usain could continue competing and maybe even receive one or two more Gold medals by the end of 2020. However, it’s for the best that Bolt bow out now. Even though Bolt could realistically continue to compete in future World Championships and Olympics finishing in a top 5 place, his increasing age and hamstring issues will eventually sideline him for good, whether he is ready for it or not. Now, Usain can retire practically on top and be remembered as the legend he will always be without an infamous fall from grace to haunt his career.

Some analysts will speculate that Bolt will make an appearance at the 2020 Tokyo Summer Olympic Games, even though Usain first announced and started planning his retirement two years ago in 2015. While a part of me does not want to imagine a Summer Olympics without either Bolt or Phelps, I’d rather see Usain remain undefeated in the Olympics than return for an unnecessary and unsuccessful victory lap. For 10 years Usain Bolt shocked the world by redefining what it means to be the fastest man alive, and his legacy will be as timeless as the Olympics themselves.

Thank you Usain, for showing us there will never be another athlete as unbeatable as Bolt.

Written by Erik Clark