Usain Bolt dominated world athletics in the last 10 years, but the legendary Carl Lewis has raised questions on the one-sided focus placed on the 31-year-old Jamaican, PTI reported on Wednesday.
Considered as the greatest athlete of all time, the eight-time Olympic champion drew curtains on his illustrious career after an underwhelming performance at the World Championship in London, where he finished with a solitary bronze in the 100-metre sprint.
“The sport is not just about one person. Nobody is irreplaceable. Track and field survived many civilizations. Jesse Owens, Carl Lewis, Michael Johnson, and now Usain Bolt. Men will all come and go but the sport will always remain,” the nine-time Olympic champion Lewis shared.
Furthermore, now that Bolt has hung up his boots, Lewis also feels that it’s time to build on the sport right away so that fans can get past their fandom over the athlete.
“We need to do more to build on the sport. We don’t need to follow that trend that we have been in the last eight years, which was just about following one person (Bolt),” Lewis stated unequivocally as he spoke on the sidelines of the 29th Summer Universiade in Taipei city in Taiwan.
“Our job is to fill the void. In the last 10 years, the sport has not grown as the focus was just on one man. The point is we need to build competition. We now have a unique chance to rebuild and grow our sport. Now we have a chance to make a difference, grow our sport and not just grow yourself [a player],” Lewis sarcastically commented on the cult stature Bolt enjoys.
Lewis, who won the gold medal in long jump across four consecutive Olympic Games from 1984-96, was also unhappy that athletics has had come to be overshadowed by the brand that one athlete had come to soak in.
Newer players, newer era
“We were just so caught up trying to make one person all about the whole sport and now we have a unique opportunity to spread it across the board and really allow it grow,” said Lewis.
Lewis also pointed out that Christian Coleman and Andre de Grasse were the ones to watch out for in the coming years. Coleman won the silver medal, behind countryman Justin Gatlin in the 100 metres at the World Championships. De Grasse finished as the bronze medallist at the 2016 Rio Olympics. Incidentally, then, Lewis drew a comparison between them and Bolt as he stated that he felt confident about them maintaining the standards set by Bolt.
Lewis, is at the Summer Universiade as the assistant coach of the US track and field University team and named Cameron Burrell as the next big thing in American track and field.
Burrell competes both in 100 metres and long jump like Lewis and is the son of Lewis’ former teammate Leroy Burrell. The two also were teammates for the famous Santa Monica Track Club.
“I was a long jumper who ran sprints. And now Cameron is trying to do that. I would love to see that. He is a great kid and he has the potential to become an Olympic champion,” Lewis opined.
Lewis also made a reference towards Bolt by using Burrell as an example. “That’s the great thing about our sport and I think Cameron is going to be an Olympics champion one day and Coleman is also going to be an Olympic champion.
He added, “Everyone just wants to talk about the garden centre instead of lumber area or the clothing area. We have a great sport that we need to spread it across and talk about the unique relationships. Don’t let people get into the box where it is about just one person.”
Lewis, however, did not like the booing of Gatlin after winning the 100 metres dash at the recent World Championships ahead of Bolt. Terming it as “childish”, he said, “It was unfair. I am not saying what he has done is right. But, it was childish.”
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