Bolt returns to Jamaica in low-key style

Eschewing delirious crowds at the airport, Olympic sprinting champion Usain Bolt returned to Jamaica in uncharacteristically low-key style. There were no adoring throngs, none of his signature skyward points or other antics. There was just a quietly organised news conference on Tuesday at Bolt’s restaurant and night club in Kingston with a few dozen journalists, business people, and politicians in attendance. Bolt’s publicist, Carole Beckford, said the superstar quietly returned home on Saturday, and nobody but his inner circle knew he was back in his Caribbean homeland, which adores him yet wants a piece of him at almost every turn. Last week in Belgium, hours after his last race of the season, Bolt said he was a bit nervous about returning to Jamaica, where his countrymen celebrated each of his three victories at the London Olympics with intense enthusiasm. Crowds of impassioned Jamaicans danced, shouted and embraced in the streets as he dominated the competition. “I’ve seen what Jamaican fans are like when I go back home. That is more scary than anything else,” he told reporters in Brussels. At the news conference in Jamaica’s capital, the world’s fastest man thanked his coach, his family and his fervent fans for their support, saying “there were a lot of doubters” after a sometimes challenging season. Speaking to the cameras, a subdued Bolt added, “I have one thing to say: Never doubt a champion.” For weeks before the Olympics, Jamaicans had been debating whether Bolt or his rival and team-mate Yohan Blake would win in London. Blake, Bolt’s blisteringly fast workout partner, had beaten Bolt in the 100 and 200-metre finals at Jamaica’s Olympic trials and Bolt’s subsequent withdrawal from a meet in Monaco set up one of the most anticipated story lines of the 2012 Olympics. But Bolt delivered electrifying performances in London, just as he did at the Beijing Games in 2008. He said he accomplished exactly what he hoped. He competed in three events and won gold medals in all three: the 100 metres, 200 metres and 4x100 relay. In more than a century of modern Olympics, no man had set world records while winning the 100, 200 and 4x100 relay until Bolt did in Beijing in 2008. None had won the 200 metres twice, let alone completed a 100-200 double twice until Bolt did it in 2008 and 2012. From gulftoday