Usain Bolt sparked unprecedented interest in this month’s IAAF World Championships when he announced it would be the last meet of his storied career. It also helped that sports commentators began hyping the showdown between the aging Bolt and upstart Andre De Grasse (of Canada) the way others hyped the showdown between the aging Sonny Liston and the upstart Muhammad Ali.
I am an unqualified champion of the underdog. Therefore, I was pulling for DeGrasse, just as I would have pulled for Ali—and we all know how that turned out. Which might explain this:
Andre De Grasse, arguably the top rival to Usain Bolt, will miss the world track and field championships due to a strained right hamstring suffered Monday.
(NBC Sports, August 2, 2017)
I smell a rat, especially given this:
Usain Bolt’s management have refuted suggestions that the Jamaican had Canada’s Andre De Grasse ‘booted out’ of tomorrow’s Monaco Diamond League 100m race after reports that the eight-time Olympic champion was running scared of his younger rival.
(The Telegraph London, July 20, 2017)
To be fair, fight promoters routinely bribe lesser-known boxers to “take a dive” to guarantee victories for reigning champions. The careers of everyone, from Muhammad Ali to Floyd Mayweather, are littered with such dubious bouts.
But a better analogy might be the way Formula 1 teams order one driver to let the better teammate pass, or even win outright:
Just three races into the new season, Mercedes has already imposed orders on Valtteri Bottas by telling him to make way for [Lewis] Hamilton twice in one race—Sunday’s Bahrain Grand Prix.
One of the instructions came in the closing stages, when Bottas was ordered to let Hamilton pass so he could chase down Ferrari’s Sebastian Vettel.
(Associated Press, April 17, 2017)
Therefore, one can hardly blame Puma for prevailing upon De Grasse to help fix a swan-song victory for Bolt. This seems the least it can do for the athlete who has been its cash cow for over ten years.
What’s more, De Grasse is poised to inherit Bolt’s role (at Puma and on the track). And chances are very good that Puma will prevail upon a cash calf someday to do for his swan song what he is doing for Bolt’s today.
All the same, I doubt this victory will ease the anxiety Bolt is bound to experience in retirement. For he’ll be wondering if or when doping, which I suspect he’s guilty of, will nullify the greatest victories of his career; you know, the way it nullified those of Lance Armstrong’s.
Related commentaries:
Bolt doping suspicions…
Armstrong…