London 2012: Usain Bolt looks unbeatable in 200-metre final: Feschuk

London 2012: Usain Bolt looks unbeatable in 200-metre final: Feschuk
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Published on Wednesday August 08, 2012 Dave Feschuk Sports Columnist
Now, only the degenerate gambler would bet against him.
That’s the conclusion the sane observer would draw after watching and re-watching Usain Bolt’s electric performance in the Olympic 100 metres on Sunday night. To wager against Bolt in Thursday’s 200 m final; to even suggest the possibility he won’t rise from the blocks, lope around the turn and find himself at least a few metres clear of his nearest competitor when he leans toward the line — well, if that’s your take, enjoy. As my esteemed colleague Mr. Perkins would urge: Don’t bet any more than you want to win.
 
And yet, a race is a race. And just because it has the feeling of the predictable doesn’t mean it won’t be compelling. Bolt was offering the usual doses of goofy pre-race theatrics here on Wednesday night, when he breezed through to the final by clocking a semifinal time of 20.18 seconds. In the lead-up to what amounted to a leisurely jog in the semi — he said he exerted himself fully for all of 70 metres — he offered the crowd of 80,000 an enthusiastic salute, broke into an old hip-hop dance move known as the arm wave, and crossed himself and pointed an index finger to the heavens.

It’s at that point that the competition, too, usually begins to pray. And certainly belief can be a powerful thing.

“Anything is possible (on Thursday),” said Yohan Blake, Bolt’s everyday training partner, who qualified in a time of 20.01 that was, given the partial effort, as meaningless as Bolt’s.

Blake might be the only guy in the field who can say that with a straight face. It’s Blake, after all, who has put up the world’s fastest time at 200 m this year, a 19.80 he clocked while upsetting Bolt at last month’s Jamaican trials. But even Blake didn’t sound like he was fully invested in his stranger-things-have-happened line of logic, punctuating his statement with a smile and a self-conscious laugh.
Blake, don’t forget, had plenty of knowledgeable track watchers touting him as an heir to Bolt’s 100 m throne before the events of Sunday night. And Blake, don’t forget, beat Bolt in the 100 at those Jamaican trials, too. We know exactly what the title of Jamaican trials champion was worth once the two men stepped upon the Olympic stage.
Still, nobody gets to this level of athletics without an outsized estimate of their ability. So when Wallace Spearman, the only American who’ll line up in Thursday’s final, was asked if the top two Jamaicans were beatable — there’ll actually be three racing for the 200 m line after 22-year-old Warren Weir qualified on Wednesday night — it wasn’t surprising that Spearman guffawed.

“Yeah, man, that’s why we’re racing. If they weren’t beatable they’d just hand ’em medals and we’d race for third or whatever,” Spearman said. “So yeah, they’re beatable. Right now people can have their opinions, but you don’t know what’s going to happen until it’s finished.”

Something along that line, of course, was the reasonable thing to say before the 100 final. Certainly, before Bolt blew away a star-studded field in an Olympic record time of 9.63 seconds on that electric Sunday, there were many reasons to question whether or not the 25-year-old giant had the fitness or the commitment or even the relative interest in retaining the bragging rights — and the estimated $20 million in annual endorsement income — he enjoys as the fastest man on the planet.
Now that we’re all wiser to his situation — now that we know the talk of lingering hamstring and back injuries appears to have been overblown; now that we’ve seen Bolt be Bolt — there is every reason to believe that nobody will touch him at these Games save for the Swedish women’s handball team.

Canada won’t have a representative in the 200 final, but it nearly did. Toronto’s Aaron Brown, the 20-year-old who attends the University of Southern California on a track scholarship, ran a personal-best time of 20.42 in the semifinal. It was the ninth-fastest time of the night, but only eight runners advanced for the marquee race.

“It’s unbelievable,” said Brown, who raced in Bolt’s semi. “I just watched Usain run 9.63 on TV, and now I’m out there racing him. But you try as hard as possible not to get star-struck.”

The star of the moment was asked on Wednesday night if it’d be possible for Jamaica to sweep the 200 m medals, given that Weir’s personal best of 19.99, on the right night, could put him in the conversation for third.

“I think there’s a possibility, definitely,” Bolt said. “There’s a lot of people there (who are) going to come and spoil the party. So we’ll see.”

And mightn’t Bolt’s 200 world record of 19.19, set three years ago this month in Berlin, be due for an updating?

“I don’t know. There’s a possibility. The track is fast,” he said. “You never know what could happen.”

Actually, we mostly, probably do. But when 80,000 go quiet and eight men are called to set, we’ll be watching, rapt.