Before he shattered world records and became a global sprinting icon, Usain Bolt was a young, raw talent with untapped potential, and glaring flaws that nearly held him back.
Now, one of the key figures behind his meteoric rise has opened up about what immediately caught his attention when he first started working with the Jamaican sprinter.
In late 2004, Usain Bolt first approached Glen Mills, the legendary coach who led Jamaica’s national athletics team from 1987 to 2009. It was shortly after the then 18-year-old endured a disappointing debut at the Athens Olympics, where injuries and inexperience left him far from the podium. But even then, Mills saw something special.
At the time, Usain Bolt had already clocked an impressive 10.03 seconds in the 100 metres, a remarkable feat for someone who hadn’t undergone specialized sprint training. Yet according to Mills, there was an obvious issue that stood out like a sore thumb: Bolt’s poor running mechanics.
“When I started working with him, his poor mechanics stood out like a sore thumb,” Mills revealed in a recent Speed Endurance interview.
“He was running behind the centre of balance. This resulted in a negative force against his forward drive and it was affecting other areas.”
The flaws in Usain Bolt’s technique weren’t just costing him time, they were also a recipe for recurring hamstring injuries, which had already plagued his early career.
Mills embarked on a meticulous rebuilding process.
“We set about doing drills,” Mills explained.
“Then we took videos of his workouts and broke them down on the screen in slow motion to show him exactly what he was doing. I would draw diagrams and show him the position that we are working to achieve.”
His transformation was complete when, in 2009, he blazed to an astonishing 9.58 seconds in the 100 metres, a world record that still stands today.
Interestingly, one of his fiercest competitors also played a role in his self-belief.
Fellow Jamaican sprinter Asafa Powell, a former world record holder himself, once revealed the candid conversations he had with Usain Bolt behind the scenes.
“I think in the entire world I’m the only person that has always scared him [Bolt],” Powell told The Guardian in 2011.
“He’s always been telling me that over the years. I get the truth out of him when he drinks a bit. He gets a bit tipsy and he’s like: ‘Asafa, you’re the only man in the world I think can beat me.’”
Powell, who previously set the 100 metres world record with times of 9.77 and 9.74 seconds, recalled that Bolt first admitted this in 2008, just before his iconic Olympic breakout in Beijing.
“He’d just run 9.72. He said: ‘You’re the only man in the world who I think can beat me,’” Powell added.
Today, Usain Bolt’s legacy stands not just on the strength of his records, but on the journey it took to get there.
