Mark your calendars and set your PVRs (who still owns a VCR these days?)
From the Jamaica Gleaner:
Bolt to appear on top US sports show
Less than a month after appearing on “The David Letterman Show” and “Live with Regis and Kelly”, two popular television shows in the United States, Jamaican triple gold medalist, Usain Bolt will be profiled on “Real Sports” with Bryant Gumbel this month.
The edition of “Real Sports”, perhaps the most celebrated sports journalism show in the United States, will air on October 21 on cable channel, HBO.
Since he set world records in the 100 meter and 200 meter sprints and the 4×100-meter relay at the Beijing Olympics in August, Bolt has captured the imagination of the world, breaking through into an American market like no other non-American track and field athlete in recent memory.
Such has been his popularity, criticisms of his celebratory antics by president of the International Olympic Committee, Jacques Rogge, and aspersions cast by others that his performances might have been influenced by the use of performance-enhancing drug have failed to dent his appeal.
In fact, his popularity has only grown. Some of the world’s leading sports stars are eager to meet him, while others have heaped praise on him.
Lamine Diack, president of the International Association of Athletics Federations, has described Bolt as the man to save the sport.
Track and field’s image has been tarnished by repeated drug scandals over the past 20 years.
Real Madrid, one of the richest and most popular football clubs, has even extended an invitation to Bolt to join its training squad.
This, after Bolt expressed publicly that Ruud van Nistel-rooy, who plays for Real, was one of his favorite players.
I hope Usain Bolt is able to keep his positive momentum going on the track at least through the 2112 London Olympics. As with observing any superstar from the outside, the distractions seem overwhelming and the hype is beyond what anyone should have to endure. We would be very fortunate if Jamaica can field an even stronger team for the next four years as it would serve as a greater inspiration for the younger athletes from the competing countries. And now we have a nice quote from Barack Obama yesterday, speaking to his supporters in St. Louis about avoiding complacency in the last few weeks of the U.S. presidential race, “We’ve got to keep making our case for change. We’ve got to keep fighting for every vote. We’ve got to keep running through that finish line.†Who knows, Jimson, he might make a good assistant coach for you one day (though he needs to add just a bit of size to his slim frame) when he gets out of the White House.” lol. Regardless, as a society, we slowly continue to progress as Usain and Barack are two distinct silver linings in the sky. And this is the true meaning of the word hope that is being offered today.
@Fred – yes, Usian Bolt is good for the sport. Let’s hope he isn’t a one hit wonder and gets plagued by injuries as we saw in the past.
As far as Obama goes, he is welcome to coach our middle-distance and distance runners :) And we’ll throw in the cross-country team, too!