After losing to Yohan Blake at the 2012 Jamaican trials, Usain Bolt vowed revenge and snubbed a highly-paying meet just to train for the London Olympic Games.
Jamaican sprint legend Usain Bolt has revealed how losing to Yohan Blake at the 2012 Jamaican Olympic trials hurt his ego.
The 11-time world champion had gone into the race in the form of his life but ended up finishing second to his compatriot, Yohan Blake, who afterwards did a sign (to seemingly silence him) that pissed him off even further.
Usain Bolt revealed that it was one of the most painful defeats and he had to revenge at the London 2012 Olympic Games. After the race, Usain Bolt disclosed that he hugged the 2011 world champion and promised that the defeat would never happen again.
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“‘That will never happen again’, that’s me, that’s what I always said to people when they beat me. When I lost to Blake at the championship, I hugged him and said, ‘Bro, this will never happen again.’,” Usain Bolt said on the Ready Set Go podcast.
“I didn’t even notice when he did the sign and it was afterwards after I went and watched everything and I was like, ‘Nah, Blake, you’re losing your mind’.”
Usain Bolt had one race before the Olympic Games, the Diamond League Meeting in Monaco but he had to withdraw from it to prepare for the clash against Yohan Blake.
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He revealed that the organiser of the meet hiked his appearance fee but Usain Bolt did not want to hear anything about that as his mind was fixed on training for the Games.
Usain Bolt then went to the Olympics, with a heart of revenge and he disclosed that he could have broken the world record without even planning for it since he just wanted to beat Yohan Blake.
In the race, Usain Bolt clocked 9.63 seconds ahead of Yohan Blake and Justin Gatlin who finished second and third in respective times of 9.75 seconds and 9.79 seconds. His world record at the time was 9.58 seconds, set at the 2008 World Championships in Berlin, Germany.
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“After that, because we had one month before the Olympics, I had one more race in Monaco and I cancelled that sh*t,” Usain Bolt said.
“They would have given me so much money to go and compete, the guy kept raising the money and kept calling me but I was like, ‘No, I’m not going, stop calling me, I’m going to train for that month.’
“I probably could have broken the world record again because I ran closer, I didn’t give a sh*t. I just wanted to beat him…you see after that, I did push-ups, I was so pissed.”
The rivalry between Usain Bolt and Yohan Blake was one of the most thrilling and perhaps, the world will never get to know the potential those two had on their best days.
Yohan Blake strongly feels he would have beaten Usain Bolt many times before he retired but that is one mystery that will never be uncovered.