1,2,3 Jamaica! Bolt, Blake and co' paint it yellow

Ladies and gentlemen.

Taking the Gold, we have, yellow.Silver – yellow.Bronze – yellow again.

The men’s 200 metres final at London could be described in one word. Epic. That race will go down in history! It was Jamaica all the way. No other country stood a chance, they didn’t even come close! It seemed like a battle between the 2 greats – Bolt and Blake. At the 150 metre mark, it looked like the race could have gone anyone’s way. And then, the phoenix rose. Usain Bolt pushed past Yohan Blake and in trademark Bolt style, slowed down before the finish line, after ensuring that he was well ahead of his Jamaican counterpart to clinch that gold for the second time in a row. Bolt finished the race in 19.32 seconds, a tad shy of the world record which stands at 19.19 seconds

Blake lost but Jamaica won. You gotta win some and lose some. Taking a cue out of Bollywood, those who lose but still win, are called Baadshahs.

The slowdown before the red tape. The glance at the nearest competitor, as if to say “Catch me if you can”. And what a calculated slowdown, even in a race as close as yesterday’s 200m finals, Bolt still had the audacity to slow down and acknowledge his superiority over Blake.

That begs the question, what if Bolt had been neck to neck with someone other than his countryman? Would he perhaps have not slowed down and run harder? If indeed it’s possible for him to have run harder. Does the fact that the first three runners were Jamaican take some pressure off them? With competitors of this caliber it would be insulting to assume something like that being done willfully and that’s not what I’m suggesting.

Having all three top places being contended for by your countrymen does take the do or die element out of the race a little. These guys probably spend a lot of time together while training and competing. There is some camredriere there, regardless of the competitive nature of these men, there will be a safety cushion in knowing that even if you come up second best, it will be your teammate who takes top laurels.

There are instances of people being in do or die situations where they seemingly acquire/unleash strength which they never believed they had. A man pulling out a grand piano out of a burning building and such. With the top 3 runners being teammates in this event, that element is gone.

What if Usain Bolt wasn’t running neck to neck with his countryman Yohan Blake? Would he still have slowed down and looked at his compatriot commiseratingly? Well you never know with Bolt. Even though he lost last time around at the 2011 World Championships at Daegu even before he started, through his false start. Even though that should have made him more eager to seal the deal in an emphatic manner, Bolt is Bolt. We all saw it coming.

Maybe some other challenger from another country will come around and make things different for this contest next time around. Hopefully someone will come along who will make Bolt not stop and slow down at the end.