World’s fastest man anchors 4×100 winner
PHILADELPHIA – Usain Bolt looked puzzled, shook his head and slightly shrugged his shoulders. No, he mumbled, he didn’t know who DeSean Jackson was and thus didn’t have a comment on his speed.
Yes, the world’s fastest man was in Philadelphia over the weekend. Yes, in this city, someone still had to ask about the Eagles. (And no, Bolt wasn’t asked about Donovan McNabb.)
Those kind of questions weren’t the norm over the weekend, when he ran at Penn Relays for the first time since he became perhaps the dominant athlete on the planet. His mere presence — the closest he probably ever will come to racing in the D.C. area — meant Franklin Field was 52,000 people full when he ran the USA vs. the World 400-meter relay Saturday, with a large portion of the crowd representing his home country of Jamaica. He anchored one of the Jamaican teams to a Penn Relays record in 37.90 with a split of 8.79, and then followed with a solo victory lap that delayed the meet for five minutes.
“I remember running here from my schoolboy days [from 2001 to 2005],” said Bolt, who messed around on Facebook and played amateur DJ on his laptop in his hotel to avoid getting mobbed during the first days of the meet. “The atmosphere was wonderful then. … As a kid growing up, I looked forward to Penn Relays every year. You get to run before a big crowd, and it helped prepare me to run at the Olympics and worlds.”
There isn’t much to prepare for this year. Track essentially works on a four-year cycle that includes two world championships and an Olympics, and 2010 doesn’t have a culminating event.
“I’ve said it before: This year is going to be easier,” Bolt said. “I’m not going to do anything special, and I am going to use as little energy as possible. … This year is going to be as relaxing as possible because next year is very serious. So this year is kind of taking it easy.”
What essentially was an exhibition at Penn Relays served as a tuneup for Bolt’s first individual race of the season, a 200 meters at the Jamaica Invitational next weekend.
