Usain Bolt Inspired Memories

I stayed up and watched the replay of the 100m finals although I known who'd won. The "Fastest Man Alive" remains Usain Bolt, king of tiny Jamaica, until maybe the 200m final, and we see if he can take that race as well, becoming the first man to win both the 100m and 200m at consecutive Olympics.

Watching the qualifying heats for the 100m sprint I saw American Justin Gatlin run his ass off, take his heat in commanding fashion. You didn't have to look close to see his muscular frame pumping for every iota of energy.

The next heat featured Usain in the first race I'd seen him in since 2008. He won it easily, looking like he was just out for a jog, his tall and slender shape easing along the track, needing less steps than everybody else. The differences between their style was striking, and two things crossed the brain: 1) talking with my old comrade at work in Manhattan, a Jamaican named Denton, about Bolt; and 2) an essay from David Foster Wallace about watching Federer is a religious experience.

For a person like me, watching a specimen like Usain Bolt is an experience; somebody just that much better than everyone else, knows he's that much better, and then acts like it. That part I think angers Americans, that he acts like he's the top sprinter and fastest man on Earth. I think he's earned it, but, knowing West Indian Islanders, and Jamaicans specifically, his whole act makes sense.

For a person like me, watching a specimen like Usain Bolt is an experience, but absolutely a different thing that what my friend Denton experienced. When the Beijing Olympics were going on, we'd chat about it. Well, I'd bring it up, and then he'd explain what running means to Jamaicans, how the biggest sporting event of the island of less than three-million is the annual high-school track championships. I wouldn't call how he spoke about Bolt as reverence, per se.

It was an implicit understanding about something in the world, something that was true and just a fact of life: payday is Friday, my Throggs Neck apartment is off the 6 train, and Usain Bolt is the most important and exciting Jamaican on the planet. To say that he was a sense of pride would colossally underestimate his impact on the Jamaican people.

When Shelly-Ann Fraser-Pryce became the first Jamaican woman to win the gold medal in the 100m in Beijing, the men and woman sweep complete, Jamaicans were soaring.

That they both defended their gold medals was mostly expected by Jamaicans, but not in the cynical way Yankee fans expect postseason births. It's the pure joy of expectation, the kind you can still get over-the-moon excited about, the kind that will still payoff emotionally. Like the little boy from St. Louis who "knew" last October that the Cardinals would win the World Series, even when Texas was down to a single strike to win the whole enchilada.

Usain Bolt to me reaffirms that humans have the capacity to be...to be...to be able to fulfill a certain high level of ability, like an artist or wordsmith that can still blow your mind.

Is that a what a religious experience is like?