- Usain Bolt keen to start new career playing football
- Retired sprinter gives his picks for The Best player and coach awards
- “It takes talent, discipline, dedication and hard work to be the best”
FIFA – Usain Bolt is, quite simply, the best sprinter of all time. With two gold medals in 100 metres and 200 metres at the 2008 Olympic Games in Beijing, followed by a hat-trick of golds at each of London 2012 and Rio 2016 (adding the 4 x 100 metres relay sprint gold at both events) the Jamaican had unprecedented success in his discipline for around a decade.
The athletics legend made a slightly left-field promise during his track and field career: that he would take up football after hanging up his sprinting cleats. Having recently retired from the sport which he conquered, FIFA.com caught up with Bolt in an exclusive interview to discuss his love of football, his picks for this year’s The Best FIFA Football Awards™, and what it takes to be the best.
FIFA.com: You were 11 years old when Jamaica played at their only FIFA World Cup™ to date, at France 1998. How much of that do you remember? Does anything notable stand out from that tournament?
Usain Bolt: I can never forget when we qualified for the World Cup as our Prime Minster declared a national holiday. I remember our first goal at the World Cup too, Robbie Earle with that header against Croatia. Then in the final game Theodore Whitmore scored twice in the win against Japan.
Now you’ve retired from sprinting, will you look to get involved in football at some level? If so, how?
Yes, I would love to play football now I’ve retired from track and field. I’ve been talking about it in interviews and a lot of clubs have reached out. Unfortunately, I got a bad hamstring injury in August and haven’t been able to do any training since then. Hopefully I will be able to play some games in 2018.
