Usain Bolt Disses Carl Lewis

Fresh off his gold medal performances in the Olympic 100 and 200 meter dashes in London, Usain Bolt took a shot at American track legend Carl Lewis. Bolt is only the second sprinter to win the men’s Olympic 100 meters twice, doing so in 2008 and ’12; the first was Lewis in 1984 and ’88. “Carl Lewis, I have no respect for him” Bolt said at a press conference following his victory in 200 (his second consecutive Olympic gold in that event as well).

The reason for Bolt’s animosity is because Lewis has questioned whether the dominating Jamaican sprinters have been taking performance enhancing drugs. Bolt bristles at this and says he and his fellow sprinters train hard are not artificially enhanced. Lewis counters that he isn’t making any specific accusations, but says the dominance of the Jamaican team invites scrutiny given that track and field has had so many athletes banned or serve suspensions for doping. The Jamaican team, says Lewis, has very a very lax drug testing program. Bolt attributed Lewis’ remarks to attention seeking because “nobody really talks much about him”

Well of course people are talking more about Bolt than Lewis these days. Bolt is the one racing these days, and has an electric personality to go with his brilliant performances. He’s equal parts athlete and showman. Lewis’ personality is the direct opposite and he never had the popularity of Bolt, but Lewis did win nine gold medals and one silver in the ’84,’88’,’92,and ’96 Games. Besides his two golds in the 100 meters, he also won two golds as a member of the 4 X 100 relay team, a gold and silver in the 200 meters, and four golds in the long jump.

As long as athletes keep turning up positive for performance enhancing drugs, the skepticism and scrutiny will continue. Clean athletes with outstanding performances will continue to be unfortunate collateral damage for the foreseeable future.