Usain Bolt in Lausanne, at IMD

Lausanne, Switzerland (GenevaLunch.com) – The crowd is packing out the Pontaise stadium in Lausanne on a warm and sunny Thursday evening, 8 July, with the temperature just over 30C. The athletes are warming up for the third Diamond League athletics event of the 2010 season. There are plenty of big name athletes here, but one of them, Jamaica’s Usain Bolt, dwarfs the rest, just as the man himself is a physical giant in most crowds.

Bolt stands out for another reason in the hours and minutes before the race begins: the charismatic Olympic champion prefers to warm up by relaxing, joking, “messin’ around.” His success has encouraged other athletes to believe it makes sense to relax more and to take time to talk to each other. His agent, Norman Pearts, says that eight years ago, the athletes were all in their corners, wound tightly, with no one speaking. Today, he says in amazement, you sometimes see small groups of them doing relaxation moves to shake out the nerves. Thank you, Mr Bolt, for helping that come about.

Bolt charmed a crowd of nearly 400 business and sports fans Tuesday evening , when he fielded questions from a professor at IMD business school, a sports psychologist and after 45 minutes, from the crowd. The theme was how to sustain success, a topic some might say the athlete, who turns 24 in September, isn’t yet old enough to know much about. But he won the crowd over with his clear views on running, winning, and life in general. It’s clear that two world records and an Olympics title don’t unnerve him or worry him.

Sports psychologist Mattia Piffaretti asked Bolt why, when other athletes try to isolate themselves before a race as part of their relaxation strategy, he does the opposite.

“If you think, I got to get this right or that right, you start over-thinking,” says Bolt. In the call room during the 20 minutes or so before a race, a space where even coaches and agents are not allowed to go and the tension is palpable, he prefers to joke and sing songs.

“Eleven months of training just goes if you’re not mentally fit,” he says. “One of my strengths is that I’m always focused. When I go out there I just try to relax and I don’t worry too much. I already know in my mind what I got to do.” It’s like a test at school, “where you already learned it.”

Taking a relaxed approach and relying on his training to come through at the right time lets him enjoy the crowd, and Bolt says that’s one of the reasons he races. “I like the energy of the crowd. For me, I look at it as a performance, not just a competition.” He loves the tracks in Lausanne and Zurich, he says, with their gentler corners that are easier on his long back. But he also loves the Swiss cities’ crowds.

His agent, Norman Peart, says we shouldn’t be fooled into thinking this means Bolt isn’t competitive, far from it. “He’s just naturally really competitive. Any game we play, he just has to win. He can’t be a spectator.” Bolt laughs and agrees. “I watch my friends racing and I think, I want to be out there. I want to be running.”

He’s been forced to be a spectator in recent weeks, taking time off due to an Achilles tendon injury. The Lausanne race is his first time back on the track.

He comes back to the importance of training, saying that “It’s really hard, but if you want to be the best, you have to do it. Maybe you’re watching TV, it’s late, and you don’t want to do 50 pushups! But you do it.”

He doesn’t believe he’s unbeatable, but he says training helps him to know he’s good, and then he reminds himself that he can be beaten, so the fear of losing doesn’t cripple him.

John Weeks, professor at IMD who was part of the team asking questions, noted after the event that Bolt offers all of us an important lesson on “identifying your strengths and building them, not your weaknesses.”

“I want to be a legend,” Bolt says matter-of-factly.

What comes across is not so much ego as a sense that the world needs legends, that kids and adults alike need someone to inspire them to do their best. Little kids are always telling him they want to be like him, “and I say hey, you don’t have to be like me!” Be you, he encourages them, but your best possible you.

“You always have to listen to everybody, even little kids, because maybe there’s something you can learn from them. You got to tell yourself you can be beaten.”

And when it’s time to run, “Then you just do it.”

Life off the track

Bolt also talked about the importance of his family, saying he learned discipline and respect from his parents, and the importance of always giving back. He answered questions about his diet with a hearty laugh, saying he eats what he wants. His coach tried to get him to follow a diet but that lasted about three weeks and now, if he wants a Burger King, he gets one. Religion? It’s there, a little more so after a car crash in 2009 made him reflect on why he was lucky enough to escape unscathed.

Usain Bolt’s charity run in Nyon

Sponsor Hublot donated $100,000 to Usain Bolt’s recently created foundation to help educate children, when 10 children each outran Bolt during a mini-race at the Hublot head office in Nyon Tuesday 6 July.

Links to other sites:

Athletissima, IMD video interview with Usain Bolt (YouTube), IAAF on Bolt’s Lausanne race

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