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Sprinting icon Usain Bolt this week said that he was planning to attend the 2024 Paris Olympics with his family but an injury just before the games changed his plans. Having last competed at Rio 2016, it would have been the first time he would have attended the Games as a spectator.
The 39-year-old didn't attend the Tokyo Olympics 2020 but said he was planning to catch the action in Paris this year before an Achilles injury forced him to change his plans. Speaking at a "High Performance" podcast live session at IFS Unleashed 2024, Bolt said,
"I was supposed to go with family but I injured myself I was playing charity game, football match for UNICEF and I ruptured my Achilles" [1:40].
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When asked if he could still have attended the Games despite the injury, Bolt said he didn't want to be seen in crutches on TV.
"I didn't want to go on crutches. It's my first time going and not competing, so it'd be a weird look every time you see me in TV and I'm on crutches like this. I was like let's just stay home."
Usain Bolt made his Olympic debut at the 2004 Olympics in Athens, Greece but failed to make his mark after getting eliminated in the first round. However, he would script a remarkable comeback four years later in Beijing, running a 100m world record to win his maiden Olympic gold medal, in 9.63s.
The Jamaican won the 200m title as well and would later defend both of those titles twice, at the 2012 and 2016 Olympic Games. Bolt ended his Olympic career at the 2016 Rio Olympics with eight gold medals and although he argued once that he could have won the 100m at the 2020 Tokyo Olympics as well, he was nearly four years into his retirement by then.
Usain Bolt says he "wasn't worried" about his world records being broken at 2024 Paris Olympics
Usain Bolt set the current world records in the 100m and the 200m at the 2009 World Championships, and no one has even gotten close to those times in the last decade.
The Jamaican was asked during his session with the "High Performance" podcast whether he was relieved none of those records had been broken at the Paris Olympics 2024. He replied,
"I wasn't worried but it's gonna take a while" [2:30].
The closest anyone has come to Bolt's 100m time of 9.58s was his training partner Yohan Blake and America's Justin Gatlin, both of whom ran 9.69s.
In the 200m, only Blake has come close, clocking an impressive 19.26s. USA's Noah Lyles also came slightly close to Usain Bolt's record time of 19.19s. In 2022, Lyles ran an American record of 19.31s at the World Championships.
