2016 Olympic Games

I Desperately Want Usain Bolt To Lose The 100m

I Desperately Want Usain Bolt To Lose The 100m

Usain Bolt's 9.69 100m world record at the Beijing Olympics in 2008 and subsequent 9.58 at the world championships in Berlin the next year are the two best

Aug 12, 2016 by Dennis Young
I Desperately Want Usain Bolt To Lose The 100m
Usain Bolt's 9.69 100m world record at the Beijing Olympics in 2008 and subsequent 9.58 at the world championships in Berlin the next year are the two best things I've ever seen in sports. 

The first race was a triumph of personality--a world record set by a man while he spent 15 percent of the race celebrating and stunting on every man who's ever run.

The second put to rest all of the dumb "How fast could Bolt run without celebrating?" questions. 9.58 seconds has been the answer ever since; no else has ever come within a tenth of a second of that time. Nothing in sports is more thrilling to watch than Bolt at his absolute peak, and no retroactive news a month or decade from now could stain those memories for me.

Also, I really hope he loses the 100m final on Sunday night. I'm rooting for that harder than anything else at these Rio Olympics.

The buildup to last year's world championship 100m was the tiresome Manichean contrast between the dirty dopers and the clean angels, which was showcased by the dumb idea that the sport would somehow be better off if the so-called "clean" Bolt won and the "dirty" Justin Gatlin lost.

This idea permeated the very highest level of the sport, as IAAF president Seb Coe said before the race that, "The sport, for all sorts of reasons, needs Usain to come through in Beijing." Briefly set aside that if the head administrator of a sport says one athlete needs to win, it's pretty unlikely that athlete will ever test positive.

It also made for an unbearable broadcast of the event. Sports Illustrated's Tim Layden put it perfectly when he wrote this year that, "Famously (or infamously, if you are a thinking human), BBC broadcaster and former mile world record holder Steve Cram screamed into his microphone, 'Bolt has saved his title, he's saved his reputation, he may have even saved his sport!' By the way, 11 months later, how is that working out?" 

Last year, it felt like Bolt was an unwitting actor in a morality play; in 2016, it's pretty clear he's happy to gin up the Coes and Crams of the world. Three weeks ago, he said, "I know the sport needs me to win -- and come out on top." 

In fact, though Bolt wasn't breaking out any Lilly King-esque finger-wagging at Gatlin or any of the other three men who made last year's 100m final after serving doping bans, he's actually gone along with this sanctimonious shit for a long time. In 2014, after Tyson Gay returned from a doping suspension, Bolt said Gay should have been "kicked out of the sport," and that letting him back in was "the stupidest thing I've ever heard."

Again, this bad idea goes all the way to the top. Asked two days ago about Gatlin competing at these Olympics, Coe said he wished he could have banned him for life.


Lifetime bans are one of the worst concepts in sports--the PED equivalent to banning felons from voting in presidential elections. Multiple governing bodies and courts have ruled they're illegal, and with good reason--they're a life sentence for taking drugs. Using steroids should probably not be treated like murder. Anyone who calls for life bans should be asked if they think harsh sentencing is an effective deterrent to crime (it's not).

There's also a curious shamelessness in Coe and Bolt saying the sport needs Bolt to win. The Russian doping scandal showed that if an anti-doping authority wants to cover up a positive test, all they have to do is mark a test result as negative. 

This is not to asperse Bolt. But, as former decathlon gold medalist Daley Thompson is right that, "If a man of Usain Bolt's stature was found taking drugs, I really think that would be the death of our sport," then a man of Usain Bolt's stature will never be found taking drugs.

The conversation around doping at these Olympics has been more nuanced and intelligent than ever. The exposure of the Russian system forced even doping-neutral apologists to admit that, OK, if Vladimir Putin is personally forcing athletes to put things in their bodies, there should probably be some regulations here. And King's wagging finger and call for the doping nuclear option was met with at least as many eye rolls as hosannas.

But the idea that track is somehow cleaner or better off if Bolt beats Gatlin on Sunday night somehow persists. How can the reality of doping in a sport change based on who finishes first in a race? Whether Bolt or Gatlin wins on Sunday night, track will be in exactly the same place. But if Bolt wins, the image will be better. That's all the IAAF cares about, and that's all they've ever cared about. I hope he loses.