Usain Bolt: Fast and loose

Usain Bolt is a freak of nature. There’s the size, for starters: 6ft 5in with size 13 feet (ideal sprinters are thought to be between 5ft 11in and 6ft 1in). Then there’s the condition that should have ruled out a career in sport – scoliosis, or curvature of the spine, which resulted in one leg being half an inch shorter than the other. And the attitude – at warm-up, a do-or-die intensity is etched on the faces of his rivals, but Bolt smiles, hangs out, even dances. And, of course, the records: Bolt is the fastest man ever – at both 100m and 200m. Finally, and most outrageously, he wasn’t even giving his all when he broke them.

Bolt has just flown in from Germany and is curled up in his chair like a sleepy cat. His voice is deep, soft and slow. He recently lost his first 100m race in more than two years, to Tyson Gay, and it has been splashed across newspapers that he is injured and will miss the rest of the season. But he’s already focused on the two biggies – next season’s world championships and, most important, the 2012 Olympics in London.

The world has been blessed with phenomenal sprinters, but nobody can hold a light to Bolt. In 2002 he became the youngest gold medallist at the junior world championships, winning the 200m. He was only 15, beating boys four years older than him. To put it in context, if Bolt didn’t exist, his two major rivals, Gay and Asafa Powell, would be battling it out to be the fastest men in history. As it is, they barely figure in the conversation.