Bolt says his 200m world record will likely be the first to fall
Track and field legend Usain Bolt has expressed that his jaw-dropping 200m world record of 19.19 seconds, which he set at the 2009 World Championships in Berlin, will likely be broken before the even more impressive record of 9:58 seconds that he set in the 100m at the same championships in the German capital.
The sprint king, who retired after the 2017 World Championships in London, offered his perspective in an exclusive interview with World Athletics. He shared that going into the 2009 World Championships, he was in the shape of his life and was confident of shattering the records.
“I’m worried about none of them,” Bolt said with a chuckle when asked which of the two records would likely go first.
“I really don’t know,” he said while adding that, “I think the 100 will be harder (to break) because it’s quicker and if you make a mistake during the race, you not going to get it. It’s a lot more technical so I think the 100m is going to go last.”
In Berlin, he lowered the 100m world record of 9.69 seconds that he set in the finals at the 2008 Beijing Olympics.
Does Bolt believe he ran the perfect 100m in Berlin?
“I would say so,” he told the interviewer, before quickly pointing out that his coach Glen Mills is not of the same view.
“Every day we talk about it and I was like, this is the perfect race and he said ‘no, it’s not,” pointing out that Mills is very technical.
“He would sit down and break the race down and explain to me why it’s not. One of the main things that he said to me that is true, [is that] I kept on looking around all the time and he said I could have run faster if you were just focused on getting to the line. It’s true [what Mills said but] in my mind it was perfect. In the coach’s mind, no.”
Meanwhile, coaching could be in Bolt’s future. If he does coach, he would follow in the footsteps of some outstanding Jamaican sprinters like Herb McKenley, who went on to a long career in coaching after he retired from the track.
Bolt, who had previously said he did not have the patience to coach, said he is now forced to exercise patience since becoming a father. He has three young children.
“I’ve always told people I have no patience for coaching (but) now that I have children you have to have patience. I think I’m leaning to ‘maybe I will coach one day’. It’s something I will have to talk to my coach about, I need to pick his brain to find out how his mind works so I can be like him, or be as good, or even better than him so it’s something that I’m thinking about now,” he said.