Great comments. The football issue always amazes me. Carl Lewis, Ben Johnson, Dwain Chambers, Justin Gatlin and now Usain Bolt. Sure speed is critical in football, but there is a lot more to the game than running away from people.

My experience has shown that football players and sprinters are different breeds. Sprinters tend to have a body awareness that can actually cause them problems in football. An elite sprinter will feel a slight tightness in their muscles and know that it is time to either bring down the intensity or stop the training session altogether. If a football player had this heightened awareness, they would never play. You get dinged up every week in football and you are still expected to play full tilt. For goodness sake, Ronnie Lott had his finger amputated so that he could keep playing. I don’t think you would see that type of decision making from Usain Bolt.

And, catching that football is actually a lot harder than people think. The quarterbacks are delivering that ball with such force that it can break your fingers. Not to mention the defense is trying to take your head off every play, looking for that one time your head is down.

So, while it looks like a good fit, in most cases it doesn’t pan out. Willie Gault made it work, and to some degree so did Renaldo Nehemiah. But it’s not like these guys were running circles around everyone.

Bolt’s probably better at soccer anyways!

They must be partying it up in Jamaica these last couple of days. Not to mention Trinidad. Have you ever seen someone look so happy after placing such a distant second? The women’s 100 meters is never as popular as the men’s but I think the Jamaican sweep will make up for that with Jamaican’s. The Americans were almost kept out of the medals completely! What is going on there these days? Unfortunately, it isn’t Canadians who are taking their medals.

I long for the days when the Canadians were a factor in the biggest race of the Olympics. That kind of rush lasts a life time. The race may take less than 10 seconds and only take place every 4 years, but there is nothing like it in sport. If someone from your country has a shot at gold, it is even better. When our sprinters are running well, it is good for track and field in general in this country. Otherwise, no one is paying much attention.

I guess tall athletes have no excuse to be slow any more. I was listening to Freddie Coleman of ESPN radio. He said that NFL teams should find out if Bolt can catch a ball. I think he said Bolt’s 40 yard time in that race was about 4 seconds flat. He said that you wouldn’t even have to teach him the patterns. “Just keep running and we’ll throw the ball to you”. And if it was a 50-50 jump ball situation, who’s going to come down with it? Well many track sprinters have gone to football with varying degrees of success. But this man stands to make a lot of money in track. Maybe now some top athletes will actually think about track instead of some of those other sports. Lets hope that some young Canadians, especially some Jamaican- Canadians are getting fired up right now about track and field. Or are people going to be too discouraged by how fast Bolt is running. Now body really dreams of coming in second.

Yes, let’s see what happens in the 200.