Sport
London 2012: Yohan Blake intends to beat Usain Bolt
If you could lock Bolt in the locker room for one final, would it be the 100 or 200?
For the record, Blake declined to entertain that last query.
“We’re just keeping our good chemistry going on into the Olympics, you know, but when we are lining up on the line, it’s going to be different. It’s going to all be business, each man to their self,” Blake said.
In 2008, he was back home in Jamaica, watching Bolt’s breakout performance on television.
This time around, Blake will be making his Olympic debut.
“One thing I really hate is (talk) about experience. Experience for me doesn’t work. Everybody talking about ‘experience this’ and ‘experience that.’ For me, it’s all about going out there and keeping focused and getting the job done. It’s not about beating Usain,” Blake said. “On the day, everybody wants the gold. To get the gold, you have to win, right?”
Working together under coach Glen Mills – Blake calls him a guru – they push each other in practice. They want to beat each other in real races. Away from the stadium, though, they get along well.
Blake’s intensity when they train prompted Bolt to dub his buddy “The Beast,” a nickname stitched onto the tongue of Blake’s racing spikes for London.
“We always train together. I know Yohan, he knows me,” Bolt said. “We know each other’s strengths and weaknesses.” One past 100-meter Olympic champion, Maurice Greene, is picking Blake to win the dash this weekend.
Greene wonders whether Bolt can overcome the technical issues that have plagued the opening segment of his 100 of late. “Don’t get me wrong, Bolt can come out here and run something phenomenal. He is capable of that. He has done that before. It is possible,” Greene said. “But he’s nowhere near the shape he was in 2008 in China. He’s not that same guy. For the last two years, he’s been having a lot of technical problems.”
