The film is a crazy déjà-vu: the usual ballets and tricks of all kinds in front of the cameras, the turn record (not the world one, this time, but one amazing record of the Games in 9'63”), the surname which coincidentally means "thunderbolt" in English, the nuggets of fried chicken at any hour of the day, which clash quite a bit with the perfection of a champion, the small island of barely 3 million inhabitants, Jamaica, which leads five men to dive almost 50 times under 9'85” over 100 metres.
The strongest of the five, and of the world, and of all time is the usual Usain Bolt: awaiting confirmation on the 200m and in that increasingly possible also in the relay (given the silver medal of the eagerly awaited compatriot Yohan Blake), everything so far seems to replicate the magical nights of Beijing 2008. What's different? The time improved, the increasingly numerous and fierce opponents, the entry into legend as the first man to win two gold medals - and consecutive - over 100 metres. In addition to everything else: records, world titles, likes and/or dislikes that this almost two-metre tall boy carries around who just cannot leave you indifferent.
As well as his companions originally from that small island in Central America that is writing the history of speed and also of the Olympics (laughing and joking 35 medals, all from athletics). It is the Jamaica phenomenon, of which Bolt is only the best possible frontman. “We grew up in a country where your first friends are animals and your first races are with goats,” says perhaps exaggerating Yohan Blake, 2011 world champion in Daegu and capable of beating Usain at the national Trials. It may be nature, DNA, the abundance of fruit, vegetables and legumes, widespread poverty, rural culture, the fact is that the best velocipedes in the world arrive from those 11 square kilometers in the middle of the Caribbean Sea. And of history, and not just those who then actually competed for the yellow-black-green colors of Jamaica, who are very Bob Marley but who are actually those of origin of people who dominated the queen discipline of athletics well before the Bolt era like the British Linford Christie (gold in Barcelona '92), the Canadian Donovan Bailey (winner four years later in Atlanta) and even, but that's no boast, the unforgettable hustler Ben Johnson.
But is it conceivable that the merit of all this, and of Bolt's umpteenth feat, is really only due to the magical atmosphere of the Caribbean? Or, even more impressive, the legendary fried chicken nuggets that the giant Usain hoards while most of his colleagues struggle between diets and deprivations? In reality, behind all this there is another name: it is that of Glen Mills, federal coach for 22 years and now coach of Blake and Bolt, of which he was the discoverer after the Athens Olympics, transforming it from an excellent duecentire (which has remained) to a masterpiece of sprinter. A character often in the shadows, of whom very little is known (on his Wikipedia page it is not even known his date of birth), Mills was the proponent of over 100 Jamaican medals between the Games and the World Cup.
In 2003, in Paris, even brought little Kim Collins from Saint Kitts and Nevis to the world title: 175 centimeters by 67 kilos, the exact opposite of the colossus Bolt. Historic triumph for the microscopic island of 13 inhabitants also located in the heart of the Caribbean, not very far from Jamaica: can it start there too by running after goats?
