Usain Bolt puzzled by 'weird, silly rules' at London 2012 Olympics
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Your support makes all the difference.He may be the fastest man on earth but even Usain Bolt, who blew the field away last night to win gold in the men’s 100 metres final, can’t escape the “weird, silly rules” enforced during the London 2012 Olympic Games.
Speaking last night, Bolt was less than impressed by some of the regulations athletes have had to abide by. Asked what he thought of the Games, Bolt said: “It has been different from Beijing. There are lots of rules, weird, silly rules that don’t make any sense to me.”
“I tried to wear my tie into here [the park], “ he said. “They said ‘no’. I said why? ‘Because of the rules’, they said”.
“Then I wanted to bring my skipping rope in and they said ‘no’ because it’s ‘the rules’. These rules just don’t make sense to me.”
And Bolt, who will also compete in the 200 metres, has not even been able to get away from the Games’ regulations on the track. “I was about to run in the final and a guy was telling me to ‘line up’, to ‘stay in a straight line’. I thought really? You’re going to make me line up? Just silly rules…”
London 2012 chairman Sebastian Coe today said he would look into why Bolt was prevented from taking the skipping rope through security.
"I will look at this, I presume the skipping rope was a warm-up aid so I will look at that," said Coe.
"I think some of it has been slightly lost in the translation, every venue is different, there are different protocols. I have raced in pretty much most places and that's the nature of it.
"I think it was more a broad point about different protocols and I don't read too much into that."
After a poor start, the Olympic sprint champion tore away from the field to take his second consecutive 100 metres gold. And he said that the medal moved him “one step closer to being a legend”.
Speaking after the race, which saw all but the injured Asafa Powell come home in fewer than 10 seconds, he said: “I was happy when I went out in the first round, I felt I could do this.
Evoking memories of his World Championship disqualification, he added: “I was slightly worried about my start. I didn’t want to false start again, so I sat in the blocks a little bit. It wasn’t the best reaction in the world but I executed it and that was the key. My coach said ‘stop worrying about the start because the best part of your race is the end’. It worked.
“I said it on the track, people can talk, but when it comes to championships, it is all about business for me, and I brought it,” he told the BBC.
And he believes he can go further by winning a second consecutive 200 metres gold as well. He said his thoughts were now turning to his own world record over that distance.
Bolt told BBC Radio 5 Live: “Well, it’s been on my mind a couple of years now and this season, on this track, feeling more confident in myself - we’ll see. I don’t want to say I can do it and then not do it. But it’s on my mind.”
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