Bolt from the blue

There's a phrase that's still popular in Jamaica when people want to talk about how fast they've run: "Not even Don Quarrie could have caught me." It's the Jamaican version of "Who do you think you are – Stirling Moss?", revering the man who claimed a first Olympic sprint title for his country at the 1976 Games.

Thirty-two years on, just as Lewis Hamilton threatens to update the British colloquialism, Quarrie's place in everyday conversation is being challenged by the emergence – the eruption – of a huge new talent: Usain Bolt. He was the man who, on 31 May, stopped the clock at 9.72sec on a waterlogged track at New York's Randall Island in what was only his fifth serious 100 metres race, leaving the world champion, Tyson Gay, splashing in his wake.

This gangling 21-year-old from Trelawny is not supposed to be a 100m runner. His 6ft 5in frame means that getting out of the blocks is always a laborious business, and his predilection for slowing before the line – he was not at full tilt in New York – also works against him as a competitor in the short sprint. Besides, as he readily asserts, his ambitions have long lain in the 200m event which enabled Quarrie to establish himself as a national hero after whom schools and roads have been named, to whom statues have been raised, for whom reggae songs have been written.

Bolt, the accidental world record holder, has it in his power to become an icon at the impending Beijing Games.

Although he has held back from committing himself to both events, his prospects of becoming the first man to complete the Olympic 100/200m double since Carl Lewis in 1984 appear increasingly healthy.

Judging by his bewildered comments in the aftermath of his defeat at New York's Icahn Stadium, on an evening when flaring lightning had announced a human bolt, Tyson Gay has been psychologically affected by the Jamaican's prowess.

Besides, the American is already out of the 200m, having pulled up during the US Olympic trials with a hamstring problem that will clearly be a worry even if he gets to the line in the 100m at Beijing.

Meanwhile, Bolt's compatriot Asafa Powell, previous holder of the 100m world record at 9.74sec, has been struggling with a groin injury, having made a belated entrance to competition this season because of a torn chest muscle. Powell remains a threat, though, as he proved with the narrowest of wins against Bolt in Stockholm on 22 July.

The world record run in a New York meeting held up for more than an hour by rainstorms prompted more than one media outlet to refer to a "Bolt from the blue". But the fact that, four weeks earlier, the same athlete had posted a time of 9.76sec in what was only his third proper 100m race meant that no one should have been too surprised by his new mark.

Bolt's followers in Jamaica have been expecting his overnight success since 2002. In that year, aged 15, he became the youngest ever winner of a world junior title, taking just 20.61sec to secure 200m gold in front of an adoring home crowd in Kingston.

For the young man from William Knibb High School, whose parents Wellesley and Jennifer ran the local grocery store, the prospects appeared limitless. And for a while, his career followed an undeviating upward curve.

In 2003 he won gold again at the World Youth Championships in Canada, running the 200m in 20.40sec. The following year saw him run 19.93sec, becoming the first junior to break the 20-second mark.

But then leg injuries undermined his Olympic ambitions, and he went out in the first round of the 200m in Athens. Injuries also checked his progress at the 2005 World Championship, where he had to settle for eighth place.

Last year, however, he began to get a serious grip on his senior career, breaking Quarrie's 36-year-old national 200m record with a time of 19.75sec and then taking world silver behind Gay in Osaka. Physically, and metaphorically, he was on the American's shoulder. Now he has signalled and manoeuvred...

Getting this quietly spoken giant to express excitement about his current position is not an easy task. In the aftermath of his 9.72 run, he ventured the opinion that he was "pretty happy" with his performance, although he became more animated on the subject of the looming Games. "This world record doesn't mean a thing unless I get the Olympic gold medal," he said. "Tomorrow if someone comes and runs faster than me I'm no longer the fastest man in the world. If you're the Olympic champion then they have to wait four more years to get you again. I think the Olympics is the biggest thing, and I'll be doubling in the 100 and 200 now, definitely."

Within hours, that "definitely" had become "definitely maybe" as Bolt's coach, Glen Mills, who guided the St Kitts & Nevis sprinter Kim Collins to the 2003 world 100m title, insisted that the longer distance was still taking priority.

Bolt gives Mills, who joined him in 2005, much of the credit for developing his talent, although, as he admitted himself, his progress was partially dependent on taking a more serious attitude to athletics after years of – let's face it, understandable – immaturity. "I was partying too much, but now I am taking the sport seriously," he said. "It was time for me to change my ways and everything in my personality to accomplish my full potential.

"The World Junior Championships in 2002 opened my eyes to what I could do. I wanted to be like some of the guys who are my heroes in the sport – Herb McKenley, Don Quarrie, who is the finest bend runner I've ever seen, and Michael Johnson."

Bolt's emulation of Johnson, the Atlanta Olympic Games champion at 200 and 400m, is restricted very definitely to the former distance, although his coach continues to resist that judgement.

FACTFILE

USAIN BOLT: Born 21 August, 1986, Jamaica. Won 200m gold at 2003 World Youth Championship and 2005 Central American Championship. First junior to break 20 seconds, clocking 19.93sec in 2004.

RECORD BREAKER: Ran 19.75 to break a 36-year-old national record at the 2007 Jamaican Championship. Took Silver at World Championship in Osaka. Set 100m world record of 9.72 in New York in May in his fifth run in the event.

BEIJING EVENTS: 100m, 200m

Even after Bolt's 9.76 clocking in Kingston, Mills insisted that his athlete – who as a 16-year-old ran 400m in 45.35sec – was "a quarter-mile runner." Indeed, if Mills had had his way, Bolt would have been running one-lap races this season in preparation for a 200m challenge, with a view to moving up later in his career.

Bolt, however, hates the longer distance, and Mills reluctantly agreed last season that he could run over 100m if he broke the Jamaican 200m record. Bolt duly did so, recording 19.75sec.

"I wouldn't say I am really lazy, but I don't like the 400m and I have never really wanted to make the necessary efforts for this distance in training," Bolt said.

Bolt's height has always made him stand out in the world of track and field. He towers over opponents in the manner of Alberto Juantorena, who completed a 400m and 800m double at the 1976 Olympics.

In so doing, the mighty Cuban bolstered the old notion that a good big 'un will always beat a good little 'un. Within four years, the slight figure of Sebastian Coe had unbolstered that assertion – but there is no question that Bolt's sheer size plays a part in his success.

After his defeat in the Icahn Stadium, Gay – a more normal-sized athlete at 5ft 11in – lamented that he had run the same rhythm as Bolt, but that his opponent's stride pattern was a lot bigger. "He was covering a lot more ground than I was," he added.

An analysis of Bolt's world record run showed he covered the distance in only 41.5 strides, whereas on average the world's best sprinters cover the distance in about 45 strides.

Bolt might have completed that run in even fewer steps had Mills not compensated on what he saw was a natural tendency within his young charge to over-stride.

"Our emphasis was to get him as technically correct as possible and that took us over two seasons," Mills said. "Last year we concentrated on correcting his turn running, making him more efficient around the curve. I felt that I could significantly improve his 200m. He was leaning inside on the turn and was unbalanced. We got him to lean forward and that contributed to him developing a good first hundred."

Ominously for any rivals, Mills believes Bolt can still improve significantly. "He is not as strong as he should be," he said. "If he gets stronger, his stride frequency will improve and when we achieve that in perhaps the next two years, he is going to run even faster."

Just how much faster is something about which Bolt, sensibly, refuses to speculate. But there has been no such caution evident among some of the world's most famous sprinters.

Maurice Greene, 100m champion at the Sydney Olympics, names Bolt as favourite to win the short sprint in Beijing. Canada's Donovan Bailey, the 100m winner at the 1996 Atlanta Olympics, says he can not only break the world 200m record of 19.32sec that Johnson set at the same Games, but can run "19 flat".

Even Johnson, Bolt's idol of idols, says he is ready to "kiss his record goodbye" once the Jamaican starts to operate over the longer sprint with the efficiency he has already demonstrated over 100m.

Inevitably, performances such as Bolt has recently produced arouse sharp questions on the subject of doping. The sport is especially sensitive to the topic given the recent high-profile cases involving Marion Jones, Tim Montgomery – whose own 100m world record was subsequently voided – and the current Olympic champion Justin Gatlin, who will be unable to defend his title in Beijing because of a doping ban. Bolt is happy to address the obvious issue.

"When you break the world record, people start saying stuff but it doesn't matter to me," he insisted.

"When you know you're clean, it doesn't really bother you. I know I am working hard, so I have to assume they [other athletes] are working hard also.

"I see Asafa all the time, so I know he's good. He trains hard and works hard, so I know he's clean and is doing the hard work every day. We know there are athletes out there who work hard for what they want.

"I've been running good since I was young. The record is no surprise to me and other people. I just run clean and try to do my best. I try to lead by example."

As things stand, that example is a shining one. And if any musician is thinking of paying tribute to it, Bolt favours the Jamaican dancehall scene. Vybz Kartel, Beenie Man ... are you listening?

EVOLUTION OF 100M RECORD

9.72sec: Usain Bolt, Jamaica. New York, US, 31 May 2008

9.74sec: Asafa Powell. Rieti, Italy, 9 September 2007

9.77sec: Asafa Powell, Jamaica. Athens, Greece, 14 June 2005

9.79sec: Maurice Greene, US. Athens, Greece, 16 June 1999

9.84sec: Donovan Bailey, Canada. Atlanta, US, 27 July 1996

9.85sec: Leroy Burrell. Lausanne, Switzerland, 6 July 1994

9.86sec: Carl Lewis, US. Tokyo, Japan, 25 August 1991

9.90sec: Leroy Burrell, US. New York, US, 14 June 1991