Usain Bolt has revealed the extreme lengths Justin Gatlin once went to in a bid to intimidate him before a race.
The fastest man alive was unstoppable throughout his glittering athletics career, becoming the first sprinter to win 100m and 200m gold at three consecutive Olympics.
Usain Bolt is widely regarded as the greatest sprinter of all timeGetty
It’s fair to say that Bolt’s exploits on the track gained him plenty of rivals over the years, as his fellow athletes became desperate to keep up with him by any means possible.
So much so in fact, that some opponents resorted to use of the dark arts in an effort to throw him off his game.
And arguably the most brutal of the intimidation tactics aimed in the Jamaican’s direction came moments before a race at the very start of his career, from controversial US sprinter Justin Gatlin.
Appearing on the High Performance podcast, he recalled: “I remember the first time I competed with Justin, he spat across my lane, the first time I met him.
“We were in, I think it was Zagreb, and we were competing.
“You know when you warm up and you’re running out of your blocks? I was walking back and he was walking towards me, and he kind of spat across the lane in front of me.”
But Bolt, who was renowned for his laid-back personality on the track, revealed that he remained unfazed by Gatlin’s gamesmanship.
Revealing his reaction, the 38-year-old continued: “I laughed, because I knew what he was trying to do, but for me, it doesn’t matter.
“All that matters is that when we line up and that gun goes, you’d better be ready. Because you’re not going to intimidate me by spitting across the lane.”
“But that’s just who he was and that’s how he was wired, because he was in the era before me where it was like that.
Bolt got the better of Gatlin in back-to-back Olympic 100m finalsAFP – Getty
Credit: YouTube: @HighPerformancePodcastThe eight-time Olympic gold medallist laughed as he recalled Gatlin’s extreme tactics[/caption]
“You would say: ‘Yo, you better be ready’, [that] type of energy, to try to intimidate your opponent. But it wouldn’t work with me.”
With Gatlin a five-time Olympic medallist, including 100m gold at Athens 2004, his attempts at intimidating a young Bolt were a clear sign of the huge potential he would later show on the world stage.
The Jamaican star shot to stardom at the 2008 Beijing Games, where he claimed the first of his 100m and 200m crowns, setting new world records in both for the first time along the way.
And while Gatlin had identified Bolt as a huge talent in their first meeting, he was unable to make any attempt to stop him here.
The American was banned from athletics for four years in 2006 after returning a positive doping test, but never managed to eclipse his rival when he did return to competing.
Bolt later replicated his Beijing exploits at London 2012 and Rio 2016, with Gatlin also making the 100m podium on both occasions, claiming bronze in the former and silver in the latter.
And while Gatlin was unable to get the better of the sprinting great here, Bolt has revealed that it was his rival who spurred him on to claim the last of his 100m crowns in the summer Games.
The eight-time Olympic medallist recalled how Gatlin’s comments in a podcast in the build-up to their face-off in Rio motivated him.
Gatlin’s only Olympic gold medal came at Athens 2004, before Bolt began his era of dominance
Bolt recalled: “I remember watching a video, that he [Gatlin] was on a podcast at the time.
“And they were saying: ‘oh are you going to win?’
“And he said: ‘yeah I’m going to win and then we’re going to go on a tour around the world with our gold medals’.
“And that did it for me. It lit a fire and I was like: ‘Yeah you’re not going to win’. That’s how competitive I was. I mean, if I probably didn’t see that video, it probably would have been different.”
