Usain Bolt Anaaaaa!

K1 - Koo, I really feared Justin Gatling would catch Usain Bolt in the 100 metres.

K2 - Yes! Usain stumbled shortly after his take-off.

But then, he steadied himself. And began to fly! They said he had been injured in training and wouldn’t be able to provide his usual service.

Yes. He’d injured his pelvis. He missed a few races and speculation about him rose. Beijing would be his Dunkirk, it was suggested.

They even said he was growing old - at 29!
Journalists like to write something to make their readers think they know SOMETHING!

It is so sad. I mean, I heard one 'expert' say that Usain had lost his 'motivation'. Usain, he said, was already very rich. And because he is six feet four inches tall, he is ungainly and can get easily hurt during training. Why would he keep on training, then?

Yes; training; sometimes getting hurt; nursing his body back to form.

It’s been a tough time for Usain, no doubt. Every time he missed an international athletics competition, his athletic obituary got updated!

But to Beijing he went?
Yes - to demonstrate to everyone what is meant by ”showing them a pair of heels'! Starting from the heats!

But the skeptics said, 'Look, Gatlin ran a better time in the heats than Bolt. So…..'

Koo, actually, don’t you think that some of the top stars - like Bolt - should be exempted from the heats? I mean, shouldn’t a system be evolved whereby the really great stars could be presumed to be 'qualified'? Just think: if Bolt could do what he did after going through four heats - two in the 100 metres competition and two in the 200 metres - then imagine what times he could have posted for each of the two finals, fresh, as he would have been??

– No, that would constitute favouritism. All athletes must be presumed equal. Suppose there was a really good young pretender in the event; who was rising up to challenge the well-known stars. If this young talent could not be exposed to the great ones in the heats, how could he see what mistakes are possible in an event and learn to avoid them? How could he conceive strategies to beat the fearsome stars?

You have a point there. Besides, there can be accidents in a race! It is the unexpected that adds spice to a competition. Remember the drama of Usain Bolt going out because he made a false start? Or Lynford Christie, the Olympic Champion of the time?

Hmmm. But what about the long distance races? Can’t they be treated differently? I mean, if I were asked to run 1500 metres twice in one week; or 5,000 metres, to say nothing of 10,000 metres: they would pick me up half dead somewhere on the track. And I would need about three weeks merely to be able to get out of bed again!

Hahahahaha! But who would be foolish enough to ask a pot belly like yours to propel itself at speed on a track?

Koo, mockery doesn’t befit you. Let me tell you - I used to do a decent 220 yards in school.

That was when Methuselah was only seven years old, right?

Hahahahahaha!
How much beer has entered your blood circulation system since those school days?

Beer? But beer is nothing? It’s the cholesterol from eating meat, man! Remember a time when we used to think a chicken that was not fat could not be tasty?

We only wanted fat cows, fat goats and fat sheep!

Women were judged by whether they could make a soup that was 'smiling' - with fat!

A smiling soup?
Yes! When the fat spread all over the ‘top’ of the soup, it was said to have made the soup ‘smile’!

Oo-la-la! How perceptions change with time!
Once, I heard a chap praise a rich man’s wife for cooking 'soup that looks like mmorosa' - i.e. whiteman’s drink: whisky or brandy!

Hahahahaha!
Well, the flattery worked. The woman called him aside, and when he came back, he couldn’t concentrate any longer on how to trap his opponent in the draughts game! The woman’s soup, as we had all secretly noted, had so much fat at its surface because it was made with goat meat which had the skin left on it and singed on the fire!

Wow! How my mouth waters, Koo!
We were jealous of the guy for days.
Well, it didn’t matter if people ate fatty foods in those days, because people actually worked then. They had to walk miles to their farms. Everything required a lot of hard labour. And it burned the fat away. Whereas today, we sit on our fat bottoms and get fatter every day because we don’t burn off the fats we consume.

Usain Bolt hasn’t an ounce of fat on his body. Yet he says his favourite food is chicken nuggets!

Yeah - he too has learnt to burn off any fat that enters his body.

There is a rumour that Usain’s mother was struck by a bolt of lightning when she was carrying Usain. Hence, fat can’t form in his body.

And he runs like a bolt of lightning?
Yes. No-one can ever beat him.
Until dark matter is tamed and put to human use! Can you imagine something more powerful than nuclear energy? That’s what Usain is waiting for!

Hahahahahahah!
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By CAMERON DUODU