AS he raced across the finishing line in Rio this summer to win yet another 100 metres gold medal, fans could have been forgiven for thinking that glory always comes easily to Usain Bolt.
But it all could all have been disastrously different.
A party lifestyle of junk food, girls and nightclubs led to him nearly ruining his chances of sporting immortality.
And his infamous smiling confidence was eaten away by doubts over whether he even wanted to win again.
Bolt’s incredible rise — and near fall — is charted in new cinema documentary ‘I Am Bolt’.
And the weary star tells EMMA COX he cannot wait to retire and feast on junk food.
IT is April 2016.
Usain Bolt is the most famous athlete on the planet.
A multi-millionaire and six-time Olympic gold medallist, he is arguably the greatest sportsman of all time.
But just a few short months before he goes for another three golds at the Rio Olympics, Bolt is crippled by injury, self-doubts and a chronic lack of motivation.
Friends reveal he was close to quitting as his famed self-belief ebbed away and the hard work required felt too much for a man who had already won everything.
He stares into the camera that has followed him for 12 months for this biopic and shrugs: “Do I really need this?
“It is hard to motivate myself. When I won the World Championships last year I was like, ‘Yeah, OK. But it’s not the Olympics’. I’m not motivated.”
Bolt even considered quitting. He tells the camera, “It’s hard to stay hungry. I’ve been going through this for years.
“Starting out with my mum and dad, I wanted to clear their debts, then it was for me, to buy nice things, cars, clothes, then it was to secure my future. But now that I’ve done most of that stuff, you just want to give up.
“It worries me at this stage of my career that I still have issues motivating myself. I’m lazy. Do I really need to do this? What do I have to prove?”
The film also reveals for the first time how he nearly missed the Rio games after spraining his ankle at a nightclub.
The party-loving sprinter stepped awkwardly off a DJ’s stage just six months before winning three gold medals.
At the time, Bolt and his team played down the ‘niggle’ and claimed it was picked up during routine exercise.
But in this biopic, the fastest man in the world is seen taking eight weeks out of crucial training . . . and being banned from any more clubbing by his coach.
Bolt explains: “I twisted my ankle and it was swollen, big. I was stepping over the barrier and just rolled my ankle.
“It was like, ‘S***, this could be pretty bad’. For doctors to say, ‘You could be out for a while’, then you start worrying. It messes with your confidence.
“I tried to tell myself, ‘Don’t worry’, but you still think, ‘Why did this happen in my biggest year? Am I going to be ready?’.”
After four weeks and no improvement, Bolt’s team sent him to Germany to see his top doctor, Hans Muller-Wohlfahrt, who is seen on camera delivering the ashen-faced verdict: “It’s not good.”
His coach, Glen Mills, warns: “It will be a gigantic task – like starting all over again.”
The team kept the injury hush-hush as they were worried it would give Bolt’s rivals an advantage if they knew he had a weakness.
Behind the scenes, Bolt and his team were panicking.
He was dragged from his pit of despair by a video of drug-cheat rival, American Justin Gatlin boasting that he would beat Bolt in Rio.
Bolt says: “As soon as I watched that video, everything changed. I got that feeling in my stomach. He wants to beat me? Hell, no!”
The rest is history as Bolt completed the triple triple of gold medals.
In an exclusive interview with The Sun weeks after his Rio triumphs, Bolt admits he is now sick of training and cannot wait to retire next year after one last shot at gold at the World Championships in London in 2107.
The 30-year-old Jamaican also reveals he intends to spend the first few days of his retirement lying in bed, surrounded by buckets of fried chicken and computer games after a gruelling decade of being the most in- demand sportsman in the world.
He says: “I just want to shut myself away.
“I want to lock my phone, not talk to my manager, not talk to my best friend, not talk to my coach, not talk to anybody.
“I just want to be in my room with fast food, Gatorade, TV and video games for at least three days.
“Just locked away from everybody. Just doing nothing. That’s my idea of heaven . . . fast food, video games, TV. That’s good.”
After a few days of rest, no doubt Bolt will be up and partying again. He famously celebrated his Olympic wins with an epic ten-day party in London, where he was pictured with a bevy of beautiful girls, including one who tweeted a picture of herself from Bolt’s bed.
His antics reportedly did not go down well with long-term girlfriend, model Kasi Bennett.
But Bolt insists he needed the time off to ‘unwind’ from the pressure of training and winning every competition. And London is his favourite place to party.
He added: “All my friends you saw in the photographs, they wanted to go to England, because a few of them have never been,” he explains. “So I was like, ‘You guys in Rio, why not just come over?’.
“We went to London, had a good time, celebrated. The clubs in London are better. From Monday to Sunday, every night’s a good night in London.
“I mean, I’m a party person. I like to go out. People say, ‘Why do you go out so much?’
“Yeah I might go out, but I work hard, so this is what I do on my down time, when I just want to relax my mind.
“This is why you see me out partying all the time. I need it.”
Although next year’s worlds will be Bolt’s final major event, he is toying with doing a farewell tour for his fans in 2018.
And he reckons he may even be able to beat his 100 metres world record of 9.58 seconds if he can stay injury-free.
He says: “For some reason, something always goes wrong, but if I could get in a good season of running, I’ll be fine. I’m sure I can run faster.”
After that, he wants to learn to cook. “Shrimp and lobster, fancy stuff, professional stuff.” he says.
And then he will design a house to retire in, by the beach in Jamaica.
He said: “I want to retire by the water, I have a house fund that I saved towards my dream house. That’s something I’m looking forward to designing.”
But there is just one thing that could scupper these plans . . . if Jose Mourinho picks up the phone and asks him to come and play for his beloved Manchester United.
Bolt grinned: “If he called me, I’d retire right now.
“If he said, ‘Usain, we need you,’ I’d be there.
“I’d be like a kid in a candy store even if I got the chance to play for Manchester for one match and sat on the bench for the rest of the season.”
There’s one thing Mourinho needs to know, though.
Bolt warns, “I’m The Special One. He might be older, but he got the name from me.”
I Am Bolt is released in cinemas, on digital download and DVD on 28 November
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