Wednesday, December 4, 2013

Faster Than Lightning:My Autobiography - Usain Bolt


As the name suggests this is an autobiography of the 'fastest human being" on earth - Usain Bolt. We all knew his showmanship but this book reveals the hardworking Bolt as well . Even though i enjoyed reading i did not like the way he mentioned other athletes specially Carl Lewis. He says that he did not know about Carl Lewis much except " I heard he won few medals" . That's should not come from someone like Bolt , who is the superstar of the Track & Field . He should have known history better.

For Sachin Tendulkar it was "Zone" where he was alone concentrating on the bowler and the ball to come and its "Moment of No Return" for Bolt. According to him when he is in 'that' moment he knew he is going to give everything  and win the race. All great sportsmen has something like this. In spite of his great in born talent , Bolt and his coach worked very hard to improve his run, specially the disadvantage created by his height, i.e struggle to get out from the block , but of course the same height is a huge advantage in the last 30-40 meters .

Good to read about his good relationship with his coach and writes highly of him. And very interesting to know that the great rivalry between the local athletic clubs in Jamaica brings best of Caribbean talents . The huge crowd and the noises they make are the big motivation for his running , of course , other times , by other competing runners who speak something bad about him . From the beginning Bolt was not happy with Tayson Gay's attitude and that started a great rivalry between the two which motivated him to hard work.

I watched the live telecast of Beijing Olympic games 100M race. I can not explain how i felt when Bolt crossed the finish line, goosebumps!! I immediately text messaged to everyone in my contact as if one of my own won the race, just amazing feeling.A pure joy to watch him running. I hope and pray that he will not go as another 'cheat'. Its scary that WADA and the Jamaican Anti-doping agencies keeps pointing fingers at each other. This sport had seen more drug controversy than any other so its the duty of the runners and the officials to keep track of everything and make this wonderful sport a clean one.

A good book worth reading.