Usain Bolt is a Jamaican sprinter. He is regarded as the fastest person ever timed. Let’s see some amazing facts and trivia about him!
1.Usain Bolt was born on 21 August 1986.
2. He was born on Sherwood Content, a small town in Trelawny, Jamaica, and grew up with his parents, Wellesley and Jennifer Bolt, his brother Sadiki, and his sister Sherine.
3. His parents ran the local grocery store in the rural area.
4. Usain Bolt spent his time playing cricket and football in the street with his brother, later saying, “When I was young, I didn’t really think about anything other than sports”.
5. As a child, Bolt attended Waldensia Primary, where he first began to show his sprinting potential, running in the annual national primary-schools’ meeting for his parish.
6. By the age of twelve, Bolt had become the school’s fastest runner over the 100 metres distance.
7. Upon his entry to William Knibb Memorial High School, Usain Bolt continued to focus on other sports, but his cricket coach noticed Bolt’s speed on the pitch and urged him to try track and field events.
8. Pablo McNeil, a former Olympic sprint athlete, and Dwayne Jarrett coached Bolt, encouraging him to focus his energy on improving his athletic abilities.
9. The school had a history of success in athletics with past students, including sprinter Michael Green.
10. Usain Bolt won his first annual high school championships medal in 2001, taking the silver medal in the 200 metres with a time of 22.04 seconds.
11. McNeil soon became his primary coach, and the two enjoyed a positive partnership, although McNeil was occasionally frustrated by Bolt’s lack of dedication to his training and his penchant for practical jokes.
12. Performing for Jamaica in his first Caribbean regional event, Bolt clocked a personal best of 48.28 s in the 400 metres in the 2001 CARIFTA Games, winning a silver medal.
13. The 200 m also yielded a silver as Bolt finished in 21.81 s.
14. He made his first appearance on the world stage at the 2001 IAAF World Youth Championships in Debrecen, Hungary.
15. Running in the 200 m event, he failed to qualify for the finals, but he still set a new personal best of 21.73 s
16. The 2002 World Junior Championships before a home crowd in Kingston, Jamaica, gave Bolt a chance to prove his credentials on the world stage.
17. By the age of 15, he had grown to 1.96 metres (6 ft 5 in) tall, and he physically stood out among his peers.
18. He won the 200 m, in a time of 20.61 s,[29] 0.03 seconds slower than his personal best of 20.58 s set in the 1st round.
19. Usain Bolt’s 200 m win made him the youngest world-junior gold medalist ever.
20. The expectation from the home crowd had made him so nervous that he had put his shoes on the wrong feet. However, it turned out to be a revelatory experience for Usain Bolt as he vowed never again to let himself be affected by pre-race nerves.
21. Usain Bolt was growing more popular in his homeland. Howard Hamilton, who was given the task of Public Defender by the government, urged the JAAA to nurture him and prevent burnout, calling Bolt “the most phenomenal sprinter ever produced by this island”.
22. His popularity and the attractions of the capital city were beginning to be a burden to the young sprinter. Bolt was increasingly unfocused on his athletic career and preferred to eat fast food, play basketball, and party in Kingston’s club scene. In the absence of a disciplined lifestyle, he became ever-more reliant on his natural ability to beat his competitors on the track.
23. Under the guidance of new coach Fitz Coleman, Bolt turned professional in 2004, beginning with the CARIFTA Games in Bermuda.
24. He became the first junior sprinter to run the 200 m in under twenty seconds, taking the world junior record outright with a time of 19.93 s.
25. Usain Bolt headed to the 2004 Athens Olympics with confidence and a new record on his side. However, he was hampered by a leg injury and was eliminated in the first round of the 200 metres with a disappointing time of 21.05 s
26. Usain Bolt set a new 100 m world record on 31 May 2008. At the Reebok Grand Prix held in the Icahn Stadium in New York City, Bolt ran 9.72 s with a tail wind of 1.7 m/s.
27. In the Olympic 100 m final, Bolt broke new ground, winning in 9.69 s (unofficially 9.683 s) with a reaction time of 0.165 s. This was an improvement upon his own world record, and he was well ahead of second-place finisher Richard Thompson, who finished in 9.89 s.
28. Not only was the record set without a favourable wind (+0.0 m/s), but he also visibly slowed down to celebrate before he finished and his shoelace was untied.
29. After scientific analysis of Bolt’s run by the Institute of Theoretical Astrophysics at the University of Oslo, Hans Eriksen and his colleagues also predicted a sub 9.60 s time.
30. Considering factors such as Bolt’s position, acceleration and velocity in comparison with second-place-finisher Thompson, the team estimated that Bolt could have finished in 9.55±0.04 s had he not slowed to celebrate before the finishing line.
31. Usain Bolt is the first man to hold both the 100 metres and 200 metres world records since fully automatic time measurements became mandatory in 1977.
32. Along with his teammates, he also set the world record in the 4×100 metres relay.
33. He is the reigning Olympic champion in these three events, and the first man at the modern Olympic Games to win six gold medals in sprinting, and an eleven-time World champion.
34. He was the first in the modern Olympics era to achieve the “double double” of winning 100 m and 200 m titles at consecutive games (2008 and 2012), and topped this through the first “double triple” (including 4×100 m relays).
35. His 2009 record breaking margin for 100 m, from 9.69 seconds (his own previous world record) to 9.58, is the highest since the start of fully automatic time measurements.
36. He has been called the world’s most marketable athlete.
37. By winning three gold medals at the 2015 World Championships, Usain Bolt became the first athlete in the 32-year history of the IAAF athletics world championships to complete a “triple triple” making him the most successful athlete at the IAAF championships.
38.In his personal life, Bolt expresses a love for dancing and his character is frequently described as laid-back and relaxed.
39. In 2010, Bolt also revealed his fondness of music, when he played a reggae DJ set to a crowd in Paris.
40. Usain Bolt is also a fan of Premier League football team Manchester United.
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