The selfless champion and great entertainer will leave a void in the athletics world no one can possibly fill – so what happens when he retires?
The penultimate act of Usain Bolt’s career, if all goes according to plan, should begin just before 9.45pm on Saturday night with a crashing tsunami of sound, then the sight of thousands of mobile phone lights dancing deliriously around the London Stadium. The coolest man in sport will briefly bask in the crowd’s affections and then – 41 strides and 100 metres later, if all goes to plan – revel in his glory. Yet as Bolt strikes his familiar To Da World pose and collects his 12th world championship title, the worries about what happens when the curtain comes down after next week’s 4x100m relay will only intensify. For this has been the era not only of the Bolt Supremacy, but of the Bolt dependency.
One leading athlete recently expressed the problem in succinct, if blunt, terms. “What happens after he retires?” he asked, shaking his head. “He is the one that has carried this sport on his shoulders for the last decade. When he goes we are fucked.”
Related: Usain Bolt: the fastest man who has ever lived – interactive
Related: Usain Bolt makes sluggish start to world 100m after beef with the blocks
Related: Usain Bolt: now you see him, soon you won’t…
Continue reading...