HTLS 2021: 'My cricket coach introduced me to track and field' - Decorated Olympian Usain Bolt
HTLS 2021: Bolt, while speaking on Day 1 of the 19th edition of the Hindustan Times Leadership Summit, revealed that it was actually his cricket coach who made him realise that he was better off running. And ran did he… on his way to becoming the greatest of all time.
Decorated track and field athlete Usain Bolt is well renowned for his love towards cricket. Well, as it turns out, the eight-time Olympic medal winner even wanted to pursue a career in the sport as a youngster. Bolt, while speaking on Day 1 of the 19th edition of the Hindustan Times Leadership Summit 2021, revealed that it was actually his cricket coach who made him realise that he was better off running. And boy, did he run… on way to becoming the greatest of all time.
"My cricket coach introduced me to track and field. Because the two main sports in Jamaica at the time were actually football and cricket… and I was a massive fan of cricket because my dad watched it everyday and every chance he got. So, I grew up watching cricket and I just had a love for football," Bolt told veteran journalist and writer Ayaz Menon.
"My cricket coach saw me running as part of fast bowling and just decided… 'You know what, Usain? You should try to run'. I said 'I will try'. So I tried and continued. It took me a while to get away from cricket because it was something I was really passionate about when I was young."
Apart from being arguably the greatest Olympian of all time – Michael Phelps gives him tough competition – Bolt is responsible for changing the landscape of track and field… in his country and around the world. The only sprinter to win Olympic 100m and 200m titles at three consecutive Olympics in 2008, 2012 and 2016, Bolt rose to worldwide fame for his double sprint victory in world record time at the 2008 Beijing Games.
Not only did this phenomenal achievement make Bolt the first person to hold both records since fully automatic time became mandatory, it led in a paradigm shift back in the West Indies, a nation that had admired cricket and football for the longest time.
"When I was growing up, everybody was watching the West Indies, because in my era, it was Courtney Walsh and Curtly Ambrose, Brian Lara… in that era, everybody either wanted to play either football or cricket. Those were the two sports for everybody because that is what we saw as success. So, when we started doing track and field, it grew big. In 2008, we dominated son everybody started looking up to track and field," added Bolt.
