English: Usain Bolt at the World Championship Athletics 2009 in Berlin (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
Usain Bolt
What he said:
“A cheetah would be cooler. I can see the headlines, ‘Usain Bolt beats cheetah’.”
The champion sprinter was replying to a question whether he would like to race against a fast car or a cheetah.
The cheetah is the fastest land animal and can reach speeds of 90 to 128 kmph. Bolt, however, has clocked a top speed of about 45 kmph.
(1936 four-gold medal winner Jesse Owens raced against horses in exhibits but he cheated. The starting gun was fired next to the thoroughbred’s head startling it and giving the sprinter a head-start.)
Bolt was in Bangalore to play a seven-a-side exhibition match against a team which had some of India’s top cricketers including Yuvraj Singh and Zaheer Khan. The face-off was titled ‘Bolt and Yuvi – Battle of the Legends’.
On breaking new records:
“It’s possible. After running 9.58 seconds I’ve never said, ‘Never again.’ My coach knows there is no limit because I never knew I was going to go that fast. But when you go there, you have great competition, you push yourself to the limit and if you are in great shape anything is possible. No, I don’t have any magic number in mind. To me, the 100m record is not the one which matters now. It is the 200m where I want to go sub-19.”
Asked if yam and chicken nuggets were his secret ingredients:
“Yeah, but chicken nuggets was just one time in China as I didn’t want to take a chance with other food. Otherwise, I eat normal food. I’m not the kind of person who would give advice on diet (laughs) because I’m bad when it comes to my diet as I eat anything that I like.”
On Sachin Tendulkar:
“Everybody knows him. Sachin is one of the greatest ever in the sport. I remember the days when he depressed me by beating West Indies. There is another funny story. When I was growing up I never supported West Indies. I was a Pakistan supporter which my dad could never understand. But then I was a huge Waqar Younis fan.”
What he really meant:
“I’d like to prove I’m the fastest beast on the planet—I’m not a machine. I get injured and no mechanics can repair me.”
What he definitely didn’t:
“Let’s race cars and we’ll headline it ‘Usain goes to Hollywood'”.
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