Trinidad and Tobago’s Keston Bledman should also be a worthy opponent for Bolt. Bledman got his first Olympic experience in Beijing as a part of his country’s 4×100, which won silver, and he has been drastically dropping time ever since. He ran his lifetime best of 9.86 on June 23rd, and although he isn’t quite as big of a name as the Americans or Jamaicans, he is definitely a contender for gold in London.
As an American, I would love to see Gay or Gatlin win gold, but as a track fan, I don’t know if that would be the best thing for the sport. Bolt has given a face to an otherwise faceless sport. If you asked an average American sports fan who Matt Centrowitz is, you’d probably receive a blank stare in response, despite him being America’s best chance at an Olympic medal in the distance events (Centrowitz finished 3rd in the 1500m at the 2011 World Championships). Bolt is a charismatic, electric frontman the likes of which the sport has never before seen.
If Bolt is able to repeat as the “World’s Fastest Man” and also win gold in the 200m and the 4x100m, he will likely be regarded as the star of these Olympics. Over the last 4 years, his results have occasionally graced the headlines of SportsCenter and other sports news providers, and he has been featured in commercials that are not just shown during the olympics, but are shown every single day. If Bolt is beaten, even that minimal coverage may disappear, further pushing the sport away from the attention it deserves, and back into the “once every four years” obscurity of gymnastics, volleyball, and the majority of other Olympic sports.
However, if Bolt is able to repeat his dominant 2008 performance, it will again spark interest in Track and Field. That interest will also potentially lead to, at the very least, proper coverage for The World Championships and other marquee meets.
In a sport that has increasingly struggled with waning popularity, and has been deeply scarred by doping scandals, Bolt is a positive representative of the purest of all athletic competition. So can Usain Bolt be beaten? Yes, and he very well may be, but for the sake of the growth of Track and Field, I’m hoping that he is again crowned “World’s Fastest Man.”
