EILIDH Doyle felt her heart accelerate as the stardust settled around her shoulders like a layer of powdered adrenaline. By the side of the track in Moscow, the elation of claiming a first world championship bronze medal had already thrilled the Scot to the core.
Posing for the photographers, waving to the crowd, it was her 4x400 relay team-mate Margaret Adeoye who kept one eye on an additional prize.
“We were excited about seeing Usain Bolt because neither of us had met him up close properly,” she recounted. On his own lap of honour, dripping with both sweat and limitless charm, the Jamaican approached and both nudged Christine Ohuruogu to beckon her friend over.
“She was pretty cool about it,” Doyle smiles. “She was going ‘come over and hang out with us’. Margaret was just babbling ‘nice to meet you…can we get a photo?’ It was very groupie-like. But so surreal. It topped off a really good year by getting a medal – and then getting that photo.”
For the past decade, countless flashbulbs have been pointed in Bolt’s direction and millions around the world have indelible memories of the lightning quick sprinter from Kingston whose astounding moments seemed to stop time.
Eight Olympic golds, 11 world titles and, closer to home, a Commonwealth Games triumph in the relay at Glasgow 2014, represent just some of the treasure the now 30-year-old has collected since his ascent to uber-stardom was completed in the Bird’s Nest of Beijing.
A fortnight today, the incredible journey is set to reach its last stop. The expectation is that Bolt, the human missile who torpedoed his rivals, faster and more impregnable than any who had gone before, will descend from the podium on the closing evening of London’s world championships and soak in the fervour for one final time.
“The guy is a freak of nature,” British sprinter Adam Gemili says. “He’s a phenomenal athlete. To be around his era has just been amazing.”
On the track, but also off it, with race promoters offering record sums to secure his attendance and the IAAF grateful that such a forceful personality – free from the taint of doping – has transcended track and field when so many of his contemporaries have seen their reputations sullied.
The Bolt Factor is worth its weight in gold. Only Cristiano Ronaldo in the present era possesses such a potent concoction of greatness and charisma but while the Real Madrid striker often trips over his own ego, the uncrowned King of the Caribbean has rarely put a foot wrong.
“He’s done so much for athletics,” says Doyle. “I see it with the young kids when I go into schools. When I talk to them, everyone wants to be Bolt when they’re racing on sports day. He’s just made people excited about the sport again.”
His ilk do not come along every day. Other than the rising South African star Wayde van Niekerk, who enhanced his status by obliterating Michael Johnson’s long-standing world 400 metres record in the Rio Olympic final, no-one presently stands comparable in their mastery of their event.
“Six–foot-three and the stride length of a horse,” Gemili laughs. “When he gets to his top speed. He’s pretty much unbeatable.”
It is the physiology which stands out. The length of those lithe-limbed levers out of the blocks. That equine gallop which none can match. The ability to get so much acceleration that his contact with the ground is minimised as the cadence builds.
“His challenge,” one athletics analyst said,” is to get up from the blocks as quickly as possibly and into his stride. Because he’s taller, it is mechanically harder for him to get fully upright and going. There are more stresses involved. But once he gets there and opens up, the force and speed are quite extraordinary.”
But, hindered by back problems, will the London Stadium be the scene of the perfect farewell or reinforce the claim that, a third successive triple gold (even if the doping of his compatriots slashed one from his 2008 count) would have been an exit sans pareil?
Until Monaco this month, Bolt appeared to be at his most vulnerable in a decade until, for the first time all year, he dipped under 10 seconds in a season when the psychologically significant mark has been beaten fewer times than any summer during his career.
Eschewing the defence of his 200 metres title, he and his long-time coach Glen Mills have thrown everything into the 100m next weekend – with the subsequent relay as the cherry on top.
Canada’s rising star Andre de Grasse remains the favourite. But it is Bolt who still holds the world in his palm.
“To have raced him a number of times, I feel lucky because the atmosphere is dialled up a couple of notches,” Gemili adds. “You feel the atmosphere and the extra buzz in the stadium – and on the track. It’s a brilliant feeling.”
Don’t write off the master showman. “Usain knows what to do,” underlines his Anguilla-born protégé Zharnel Hughes. “I know Usain is a championships performer. He’ll come on the day and deliver.”
And then do one more lap of honour, maybe two, even three, before departing, leaving athletics urgently hunting a new face to illuminate the sport.
“But I don’t feel there will be a big hole when he leaves,” Doyle says. “He came in at the right time when we needed a star. Now he’s leaving at the right time with his legacy secure.
“What people forget is he doesn’t actually compete a lot in terms of Diamond Leagues. So the attraction won’t change. But what’s been the most important thing probably is that he’s got the younger generation interested. And hopefully that continues when he’s gone.”
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