Usain Bolt

The first prize I won was a cup for a primary school race in grade four and many more followed, although Mom had an amazing ability to break them as soon as I’d brought them home. There are a few still on display in the house but I don’t know how they’ve survived. Everyone in my family breaks things – glasses, tea-cups, plates. If it can be smashed, it gets smashed, so now they drink out of plastic cups and eat off plastic plates just to be on the safe side.

I was picked for the parish primary school team after winning a Trelawny sports day and discovered that while I might have been the fastest in my part of Jamaica, there were plenty of other guys on the island who could run too. In two years of competing at the national championships I was nowhere, which was hardly the mark of an athletics legend in the making. I got my ass kicked over 100 and 150 metres but it didn’t bother me because to me running was for fun, I wasn’t practicing for the Olympics.

However I was quick enough to get a sports scholarship to William Knibb, one of the best schools in Trelawny. There was no other way I would have got in because, although I was reasonably bright, there were plenty of kids more intelligent than me. I could cope there – I wasn’t a class dunce – but having earned my place on a sports ticket they expected me to be out training every night on the school field. For me this was all wrong – running was supposed to be a hobby, not something you had to work at – and I saw myself mainly as a cricketer who only did track and field because he was fast.

During my first year at William Knibb I skipped training after school all the time. I’d go to Falmouth with my friends Pete and Nimrod and we’d spend our dinner money on playing video games. We lived for going to the games room which was run by a guy called Floyd. There were four Nintendo 64s and four TVs, and you paid a Jamaican dollar per minute to play which we did until our money ran out. When I got home and my parents asked how training had gone, I would say ‘Yeah, it was good.’

They never suspected anything and I wasn’t worried about being found out but it all changed when one of my mom’s nieces spilled on me and told my dad. He was not happy and came up to school for a meeting with the coach, Mr Pablo McNeil – who was a former Olympic sprinter – and the head of sports, Miss Thorpe. They lectured me, explaining the importance of training, that my athletics ability was the reason the school accepted me and if I didn’t do it they would take the scholarship away. I understood and I also knew Dad would kill me if I didn’t do it – so, although I still went to the games room once in a while training took priority from then on.

Mom and Dad were always at my races to cheer me on but while my mom, Jennifer – or Jen Jen to her friends – spoiled me and let me get away with things, Dad kept pushing to making sure I went to training and the teachers knew they had his support if I was slacking off.

I didn’t really start trying until grade nine, when I was about 14 but it was noticeable how my performances improved once I put in the extra effort. While I was the best runner in my school, there were guys from other schools like Keith Spence from Cornwall College and another one called David from Emmanuel College who used to beat me regularly. Yet once the effects of regular training kicked in they couldn’t keep up and the following year 2002. I was winning the World Junior Championships. Training had helped but I also relaised that I had talent, real raw talent.

The teachers at William Knibb deserve my grateful thanks for what I’v achieved today but I didn’t always see it that way. They were so protective that they wouldn’t let me join the school football team or do football in PE in case I got injured nor would they let me play cricket. When I went to the CARIFTA Games trials they delibereatly put the school sports day on at the same time so that I couldn’t take part in it with my friends. Then the following year when they realised I would be available to take part in it, they cancelled sports day completely.

I know that the head of sports Miss Thorpe had my best interests at heart. Whatever you wanted, you could always go to her. She even put up with me flicking her on the back of the ear whenever I walked past. She kind of got used to that.

Whenever I get stressed by Life: Trelawny, the parish where I was born in north west Jamaica is where I return. It’s quiet, with a slower pace to life. I can chill and nobody bothers me. In Kingston, the Jamaican capital where I live because of my training demands, people are always calling up and coming to see me. That’s good but sometimes you need to get away from it all. In Trelawny I can sit on the veranda outside Mom and Dad’s house, relax and clear my mind. People walk past and say ‘hi’ but that’s it, man. They’ve known me since I was a youngster, so seeing me is no big deal.

One teacher Mr De Souza, a football coach was always checking on me. Whenever he saw me walking round without shoes on he would be screaming at me, telling me how important it was for a runner to keep his feet protected.

Mr Barnett, my athletics coach at school later on was quite soft with me but I produced the results for him. He didn’t train me to extreme levels, because he realised that flogging me into the ground was not the way to get the best out of me. He was a funny man and would let me drive his Toyota Corolla on the main road once we got five minutes away from school even though I didn’t have a licence. I knew what I was doing, because Floyd from the games room had let me have a go in his car a few times. But my Daad wouldn’t teach me to drive and I still cuss him for it. He had two vans for work and a motor bike and never let me use any of them. Not once did he say ‘Come on, son, I’ll show you.’ With my height I could have been driving at the age of ten but Dad was one for doing everything the right way. I had to have about 30 hours of lessons at driving school on Dad’s orders. He was so strict and expected rules to be obeyed. You could never get around him.

Source: Usain Bolt, My Story