Ferocity Touches a Vein

Today's guest lecture comes from Brian Lauvray, whom Chicagoans may know from his post at Gapers Block's Tailgate sports section...Brian brings to us a piece on one of our favorite subjects, Usain Bolt, who the Recluse nicely pitted against Amare and Michael Phelps in a piece from last summer. This summer, we join Bolt, and Lauvray (metaphysically), in Switzerland...



This week and across the pond in Europe the titanic freak-of-physics, Usain Bolt redefined swag and athleticism with one deft 19.53 200 m "jog." Seriously, forget "Impossible is Nothing," Bolt is going door-to-door asking for donations in difficulty. To wit, in Lausanne here's what went down: (note: vid is in Italian)




Fierce head wind, check; driving rain storm, check; pre-race: Bolt? Flipping his fingers like under-sized windshield wipers while flexin' and apin' for the umbrella-ed crowd; race: Bolt singularly putting the competition in a headlock and putting world-records and history --HIS world-records, mind you-- on notice, that he's coming. If LeBron, Kobe and on certain nights McGrady or pre-injury Gilbert redefine "virtuoso" and "appallingly efficient and single-handed dominance in a team realm," Bolt's performance at Lausanne emerges as a hyperbolic defying, amalgamate of Arenas' kooky candidness/antics and Kobe's iron-will to crush the spines of those who stand before him, all within a matter of minutes (pre-race/post-race: swag and show) and seconds (race: execution in the face of all-comers and Mother Nature's ornery mixtape of pelting rain and cursed wind).

Track and Field is a difficult comparison to our beloved Association --one is a battle of man vs man vs man vs man; and the other team vs team, only in the relays do you have "teams;" and even in the NBA where, on any given night, an individual can carry a team to victory: he still carried a TEAM. Track is strictly man vs man, as in the simplistic breakdown of boxing: "One man punches another man harder and more frequently," track is (again K.I.S.S.ing it here, folks): "I ran waaaaay faster than you." The actual competitions and nature of the distances --over 200 M pro racers are too close in skill for acts of brazen celebratory excess-- in T n F leave very little room for style or swag as opposed to the NBA where in-game style is self-evident. But stylistically what is galling about Bolt is that not only does he carry himself with unlimited confidence and showmanship pre and post-race, during the races he still carries that "swag" along with his invisible jetpack and the perfect form that allows his 6'5" frame to effortlessly eclipse others who should, by all previous track measures and conventions, be eclipsing HIM!

Watch the replay of the race closely and witness the utmost calm that his body maintains from start to finish; as other racers begin gnashing their teeth, tensing their bodies on each stride, and grimacing from the lactic acid coursing through their veins --no doubt begging for this very public humiliation to end; Bolt is beginning to grin, his countenance at the very worst pains of the sprint, slightly more expressive than "Uh-oh, did I remember to pay the cable bill this month?" and not near the Munch-eaen "Baby, Come Back! She didn't mean nothing!" expression of his "competitors." Where before in track the signposts of style and swagger were superficial commodities: Carl Lewis' black wraparound shades at the '84 Los Angeles games, Michael Johnson's gold Nike spikes in '96 Atlanta and '00 in Sydney; Bolt, has delivered with himself an article-free swag that is as much breezy, Jamaican, palm-lined, beach as it muscle-bound giraffe with the heart of a tiger that broke free from Dr. Moerau's island. In Beijing last summer with an untied shoe, dude, slowed in the final 35 meters of the 100 and still won gold. Again, people pre-Bolt did not win races by having untied shoelaces and definitely not by slowing down with a third of the race left to run...

I have a fair amount of intimacy in "the racing sports" (2000 US National Team Development Camp, Holler!) and an adage that a former mentor of mine once said rings hollow with Bolt. To paraphrase my old coach: "There comes a time in every race, where every single competitor has a neon-sign above their heads saying 'Kick my ass' and that's when you crush them." Yet, with Bolt, the neon-sign is swinging above the competition's collective heads before the race has even begun. The men lined up next to him are less his rivals and more dead men walking.

Made Flesh

Frank Deford was on NPR this morning talking about how stupid it was to try to compare Michael Phelps to competitors from other sports, and while he obviously has a legitimate point, I can't help but think of Amare Stoudemire when I watch Usain Bolt. It's the irrepressible swagger in the starting blocks, the preternatural cool under pressure, and more than anything, the sheer physical dominance over his opponents. Like Amare, Bolt manages to look like a man among boys, while at the same time seeming himself to still be a child. It's this rawness that prompted NBC announcer Ato Bolden to proclaim that, although he had just pulled off a astonishingly commanding victory in the 100 meters, Bolt had horrible technique. Or to lament to millions of viewers before the 200 final that Bolt was "still clownin."

For anyone who thinks I'm insulting Bolt--already one of the greatest sprinters of all time--by comparing him to a mere three-time All-Star who's never advanced past the Western Conference Finals, remember back to the 2005 playoffs. At the age of 22 (the age Bolt turns tomorrow), Amare was clearly the best player in a Suns-Spurs series that featured two former MVPs still in their prime. Bolt is that Amare Stoudemire, the pre-injury Amare for whom the sky was literally the limit. He put together STAT lines like 42 points, 16 rebounds, and 4 blocks, and seemed like he was only scratching the surface of what he could be. Even Lebron has failed to exhibit that kind of almost casual supremacy, and despite his youth, King James has always seemed much older and wiser than his years (see Wednesday's tie picture).



And don't even think about mentioning the name Jordan. For today's sports fan, Michael Jordan is the standard to which we hold all other athletes. Tiger Woods is the "Michael Jordan of golf" or Roger Federer is the "Michael Jordan of tennis." It's gotten ridiculous. Deford is tearing his hair out. And, anyway, the "Michael Jordan of track" is clearly Carl Lewis: the greatest of his generation, transcendent all-around talent, loved by all, but who hung around a little too long. While he may yet scale the same heights as Jordan, Usain Bolt is something different.

Bolt, like Amare before the microfracture, has the kind of talent and presence that make a non-believer like me want to get religion. I'm reluctant to suggest in any way that Bolt doesn't train as hard as Phelps or anyone else, but there is something about him that makes me want to use words like "blessed" or "predestined." Or, better still, Bolt is beatific.