Michael Beloff

What makes someone the fastest man on earth?

Usain Bolt has one critical physical advantage, says the pacy memoir Fast as Lightning

Usain Bolt wins the 100 metres relay final at the 2013 IAAF World Championships (Image: Getty) 
issue 19 October 2013

What makes someone the fastest man on earth? The current tenant of the informal title held by such sporting icons as Jesse Owen and Carl Lewis starts with a version of the pastoral. Here is Usain Bolt as a child of nature, running free in the wilderness near the remote village that was his birthplace in Jamaica, plucking yams from the ground and bananas from the trees, body-building by carrying buckets of water home from the stream, and kept on the straight and narrow by regular ‘whoop-ass’ from his father.

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