Know more about the world's fastest man 'Black Lightning' Usain Bolt

New Delhi: Whenever we think about speed, a name pops up and the name is of the great Jamaican sprinter Usain Bolt. Usain Bolt nicknamed the ‘Black Lightning' got international attention during the 2008 Beijing Olympics, where he amazed everyone with his lightning speed in 100 meters sprint race. Bolt was born on 21 August 1986 in Sherwood Content which is a small town in Trelawny, Jamaica. He grew up playing Cricket and Football. He once said, “When I was young, I didn't really think about anything other than sports". Usain grew his interest in athletics and by the age of 12 when he was in primary school, he sprinted in 100 mtrs during his School's annual sports and became the fastest sprinter of school. He got admitted to high school where his cricket coach who got amazed with his running speed advised him to try his hand in athletics. Bolt then started working on his sprinting skills under the guidance of Pablo Mcneil (former Olympic sprint athlete) and Dwayne Jarret. Soon he made his mark in school sprint racing circuit. Usain Bolt debuted on International racing track in the 2001 IAAF World Youth Championships in Debrecen, Hungary, where he lost his 200 mtrs event and failed to qualify for the finals of the tournament. But he set his personal record of completing his sprint of 200 mtrs in 21.73 secs. Later in CARIFTA Games, Usain set records in the 200 and 400 mtrs with 21.12 and 47.33 secs respectively. This achievement made Former Prime Minister P. J. Patterson recognize Usain's talent and soon he arranged to move him to Kingston, along with Jermaine Gonzales, so that he could get proper training with the Jamaica Amateur Athletic Association (JAAA) at the University of Technology, Jamaica. After training there, Bolt started sprinting for the top spot which he gained now. His leap started since 2002. He won many medals since then and got acclaimed for his record speed. But in 2004 Athens Olympics, he had a leg injury and missed some important events. Again misfortune followed him during 2005 2005 World Championships in Helsinki where he suffered injury in the final round and came last doing 200 metres in 26.27 secs. Since then he has been facing some injury problems or the other till the 2008 Beijing Olympics where he broke all the records of sprint history. Bolt sprinted 100 mtrs in quite an extravagant 9.69 secs beating Richad Thompson with a handsome margin of 20 secs. At the 2009 World Championships final Bolt improved his own world record with a time of 9.58 s to win his first World Championship gold medal. In 2012 Summer Olympics, Bolt crossed the finish line in 200 metres, he did five push-ups, one for each of his Olympic gold medals he won. When Usain won his straight seventh title in the 100 and 200 metres, he said: “I'm now a legend. I'm also the greatest athlete to live”.