World sports forum would miss one of the legends of athletics Usain Bolt who took a departure after his 4x100m triumph in Rio on Friday. The Olympics is going to miss the Lightning Bolt pose that has lit up the last three Games at a time when athletics desperately needs a hero. From his first 100m Olympic gold in Beijing, when the Jamaican astonished the world with his 9.69 sec time, Usain St Leo Bolt has been the real star. On top of his record-equaling nine athletics gold medals, Bolt, who will be 30 on Sunday, is confident, relaxed and supremely connected with the crowds he attracts wherever he goes. His mother seems to think that the young Bolt, who will retire after next year’s world championships, was born to run. At the world youth championships in 2001, he was entered for the 200m but failed to make the finals. His coaches were often frustrated at his reluctance to train and his practical jokes. But at the age of 15 he was already 1.96 metres (6ft 5in) and at the world junior championships in 2002 he won the 200m. He is one of just a handful of athletes to have won world titles at junior, youth and senior levels. Bolt set his first 100m world record (9.72sec) in May 2008 in New York. The Jamaican then stormed the Beijing Olympics with his first 100m, 200m, relay treble. The world was forced to take notice of his chest-beating. His 9.58 record at the world championships in Berlin in 2009 was an even bigger sensation. After completing the ‘triple triple’ of Olympic sprint titles in Rio on Friday, Bolt summed it up by saying: “There you go. I’m the greatest.” Athletics bosses must wish he could stay longer.
