jonah lomu | Mikebrown's Blog

Following a post on a fellow trainee’s blog debating the sporting icon of the decade – I thought it was time I stuck my oar in.

For me it is unquestionably the one and only Usain Bolt. He has that X-Factor that no other sportsperson on the planet currently possesses.

Image courtesy of Wikimedia OTRS

He has done more in the last two years than anyone else has done in this whole decade. No-one else has cleaned up and dominated their respective sports the way that has Bolt has in althletics and as one blogger points out it is unlikely that anyone ever will.

Also, we are talking sporting icons. Not necessarily the best, although quite clearly Bolt is, but someone who stands out above the rest for not only their abilities but simply the way they are.

Muhammad Ali is quite clearly a sporting icon and is synonymous with boxing. Jonah Lomu and what he did in rugby before his health problems is another example.

With his charisma and confidence Usain Bolt is a sporting icon of the highest order.

Okay, Bolt only really burst on the scene in 2008 and is only in the early years of his career. Some may argue this discounts him from the running but in the last two years the 23 year old has totally blown away all competition.

Any race he is in seems to be a foregone conclusion and this is a sport where sprinters are said to peak in their early thirties.

Bolt announced himself to the athletics world in 2002 when he became the youngest gold-medal winner in the history of the Junior World Championships. At just 15-years-old he recorded a 20.61 sec 200m effort.

Then in 2008, Bolt truly hit global superstardom at the Beijing Olympics. He became a three time Olympic Gold Medallist, winning and breaking the record in the 100m, 200m and as part of the Jamaican 4x100m.

Bolt then followed this feat up in 2009, at the Berlin World Championships, where he beat his own World Records and became the first man to hold the World and Olympic 100m and 200m titles.

He was also named the Laureus World, Sportsman of the Year for 2009 and joins the likes of Rodger Federer, Tiger Woods, Michael Schumacher and Lance Armstrong in winning that acolade.

But it is not just Bolt’s track success. It is the way he wins with ease, on many occasions he has jogged and show-boated the last few metres, the confidence and care freeness he exuberates before races, and of course the trademark Usain Bolt stance. He is not part of a team (well apart from in the 4x100m). He is on his own, all his achievments are his not a teams.

Usain Bolt is synonymous with both athletics and sport, and this is why I believe he is the sporting icon of the noughties and potentially our generation.

As Simon Hart wrote in The Telegraph: “Bolt’s achievement is to have torn down the barriers. Impossible has been replaced by possible.”

Usain Bolt’s World Records.