Usain Bolt: Showboater or Showstopper?

Some people said Usain Bolt was "disrepectful" while absolutely creaming everyone in the signature event of the Summer Olympics, the 100 meter dash. Leave it to the great Heather Havrilesky, Salon.com television critic and my e-girlfriend, to sort it all out:

I knew Bob Costas would do it eventually. For more than a week, he'd managed to hold down the Olympic Spirit Desk in Beijing without throwing too much fanciful pontification into the mix. He'd refrained from unpacking his adjectives. He'd shown an unusual degree of self-control, smiling gamely and interviewing a grinning Michael Phelps or an outraged Bela Karolyi, the Romanian Captain Kangaroo of women's gymnastics, all without any extracurricular diatribes.

But then a few nights ago, that old, familiar self-righteous Costas emerged to take issue with 100-meter (and eventual 200-meter) gold medalist Usain Bolt from Jamaica. In case you've been hiding out in your nuclear bunker all week, Bolt broke his own world record and took the gold when he ran the 100-meter dash in an astonishing 9.69 seconds. But most amazing of all, Bolt not only appeared relaxed during the last 20 meters of the race, but he slowed down slightly, looked around him, and then, seeing that no one was even close, beat his chest with pride as he crossed the finish line. Naturally, to Costas and a few other pundits, this was a complete and total outrage.

Forget that the slow-motion shots of Bolt, casually speeding across the finish line and throwing his arms out to celebrate while the men next to him looked ready to spontaneously combust with the effort they were exerting, may constitute the most incredible Olympic footage ever. Using track and field commentator Ato Boldon's remarks as a launching point, Costas hopped on board the controversy train with his usual recklessness on Monday night, marveling with Boldon over Bolt's performance, then playing the scold, unprompted: "From where I sat ... it's disrespectful to his competitors and it's disrespectful to the Olympics and to the audience because they deserve to see the best possible performance." Boldon agreed but wouldn't go quite so far with his criticisms, merely saying, "It was a display that should not have been there."

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Funny, if the screaming audience in the Bird's Nest felt disrespected, they certainly didn't show it. When Bolt ran over to give his mom in the stands a hug, he even ended up hugging two wildly enthusiastic Chinese fans along with her. It was the most unbridled display of sheer Olympic glory we'd seen all week, with Michael Phelps' gesturing and screaming during the last leg of the 4x100 freestyle relay taking a close second.

But Costas is so hot to stir things up that he can't help overstating the entire affair. Like the square football announcers who tsk-tsk endlessly about "showboating" in the end zone like it's the end of modern civilization as we know it, Costas has been trilling about "class" and "classiness" among athletes for decades now, as if it's the pinnacle of human achievement to reach a seemingly impossible goal, and then celebrate by acting like you're waiting for the F-train. What kind of bizarre WASPy mentality suggests that raw emotions should be saved for the most appropriate time and place, and then expressed in the most proper, so-called classy way?

Bolt enjoys joking around with his competitors. One of his shoes was untied when he ran the 100-meter race. His technique is described as sloppy and amateurish. He polished off a bunch of Chicken McNuggets right before the race. He's that kind of a guy. He's 21 years old, for Chrissakes! He became the fastest man on earth by a long shot, breaking his own record, while every other contender huffed and puffed along several feet behind him. How would anyone dare to claim that he owed it to the fans to run even faster, or that he disrespected them by celebrating a little early? What in the world is Costas, space alien from Planet Honky, talking about? Why should Bolt care about class, of all provincial, bourgeois values? What the hell is class, anyway, but some arbitrary code that soulless, high-capitalist professional robots live by?

You know what I like to see in the world's greatest athletes? Exuberance, and joy, and tears. I'd like to see them rip their clothes off and run around the Bird's Nest naked. I'd like to see a guy who's fast enough to beat his competitors then walk slowly across the finish line while grabbing his package. There's your world record right there, motherfrackers. Take that, masters of the corporate-sponsored Olympic universe. I'm just too goddamn fast to heed your mortal concerns.