The Life of a Sprint Superstar

Published by the BBC on August 1, 2014

Whether or not Usain Bolt did get caught out criticising these Commonwealth Games - the reporter insists, the athlete vehemently denies - the subsequent headlines were another indication that life for the Jamaican sprinter is not like that for any other athlete.

Ever since that golden 12-month period from August 2008 to August 2009 - four major finals, four gold medals, four astonishing world records - Bolt has been a man out on his own, just as he was in carving up 100 metres in 9.58 seconds and 200m in 19.19.

Different league, different rules. Wherever Bolt goes, normal goes out of the window.

There is the big stuff: a million requests for the 80,000 tickets for 2012's Olympic 100m final, an appearance fee 10 times that of his fellow sprinters, a sportswear sponsorship deal that reportedly pays him more than £2m a year in retirement, let alone the £6m each year while he is still running.

Then there is the day-to-day weirdness: being paraded round tracks before competitions astride a giant rocket, a world championships being halted so the entire stadium could sing him Happy Birthday, being asked about the Gaza crisis and Scottish independence in news conferences while posing alongside a giant anthropomorphic thistle.

What else sets him apart is how much he enjoys being the centre of such relentless attention.

One of the saddest aspects of Tiger Woods' comparative fame is how miserable he makes being Tiger Woods appear. Bolt utilises that same weight of public pressure to drag out his best.

In the weeks before London 2012, he had been beaten by rivals and doubted by critics. By his own admission, he was only 95% fit. Then, at the centrepiece of the biggest sporting occasion on the planet, he ran the second fastest 100m of all time to retain his Olympic title in unprecedented style.