Strong words…
It wasn’t the fairytale ending that Usain Bolt or a lot of people wanted. Bolt is the greatest sprinter of all time and many wanted to see him sign off from the sport with a gold medal, but alas, it wasn’t to be.
As he straightened in the final leg of the 4 x 100m relay, Bolt felt his hamstring twang and crumbled to the ground in pain with Britain going on to claim gold.
It was bitterly disappointing for Bolt with the team doctor saying the injury was simply a cramp in his muscle, and the pain on Bolt’s face was mostly from losing the race.
The race took place ten minutes later than scheduled as medal ceremonies were carried out, and Yohan Blake, one of the other members of Jamaica’s relay team, believes that this is the cause of Bolt’s injury.
In an interview with the Telegraph, Blake said a combination of the long walk and long wait contributed to Bolt’s injury.
Blake said:
I think they were holding us too long in the call room. The walk was too long. Usain was really cold. In fact Usain said to me, ‘Yohan, I think this is crazy’.
It was 40 minutes and two medal presentations before our run. We keep warming up and waiting, then warming up and waiting. I think it got the better of us.
We were over warm. And to see a true legend, a true champion go out there and struggling like that… The race was 10 minutes late, we were kept 40 minutes and it was a 300 metre walk. It was crazy.
He added that it was ridiculous that they were forced to wait outside for 45 minutes while the medal presentations took place.
