Usain Bolt

Bolt grew up in the rural community of Sherwood Content in Trelawny Parish, Jamaica, where his parents, Wellesley and Jennifer Bolt, operated a local grocery store. He was raised alongside his brother Sadiki and his sister Sherine. In his youth, he was an enthusiastic cricket player and footballer before coaches encouraged him to focus entirely on track events.

In May 2020, Bolt and his partner Kasi Bennett welcomed their first child, a daughter named Olympia Lightning. In 2021, the couple expanded their family with the birth of twin sons, named Thunder and Saint Leo. The couple announced their engagement in August 2026.

In 2022, Bolt was impacted by an extensive financial fraud scheme tied to the Jamaican private investment firm Stocks and Securities Limited. An official investigation uncovered long-term fraud affecting numerous accounts across the company, resulting in Bolt losing approximately 12.7 million dollars from his private holdings.

Bolt attended William Knibb Memorial High School, where his speed as a cricket fast bowler led his coach to suggest sprinting. Former Olympic sprinter Pablo McNeil began coaching him during this period and originally coined his nickname "Bolt of Lightning," which international media later adapted to "Lightning Bolt."

Bolt earned international recognition at the 2002 World Junior Championships held in Kingston, Jamaica. Competing at age fifteen in front of a home crowd of 36,000 spectators, he won the 200-meter gold medal with a time of 20.61 seconds, making him the youngest male world junior champion in track history. The victory led to a sponsorship deal with the sportswear company Puma and prompted Jamaican Prime Minister P. J. Patterson to arrange for him to train in Kingston with the Jamaica Amateur Athletic Association.

Working under coach Fitz Coleman, Bolt turned professional in 2004. At the CARIFTA Games that year, he ran the 200 meters in 19.93 seconds, becoming the first junior athlete to break the 20-second barrier. Despite struggling with a hamstring injury at the 2004 Olympic Games in Athens, he chose to remain in Jamaica to train and attend the University of Technology rather than accept scholarship offers from American universities.

In 2005, coach Glen Mills took over Bolt's training, working to improve his conditioning and professional discipline. Bolt broke Don Quarrie's long-standing Jamaican 200-meter record in 2007 by running 19.75 seconds, which convinced Mills to let him compete at 100 meters. On May 31, 2008, at the Reebok Grand Prix in New York City, Bolt broke the 100-meter world record with a time of 9.72 seconds, defeating world champion Tyson Gay.

At the 2008 Olympic Games in Beijing, Bolt won gold in both the 100 meters and 200 meters, running world-record times of 9.69 seconds and 19.30 seconds. In the 100-meter final, he celebrated before reaching the finish line despite competing with an untied shoe. At the 2009 World Championships, he lowered both marks further, setting a 100-meter world record of 9.58 seconds and breaking his 200-meter record by an identical 0.11-second margin.

Bolt continued his Olympic dominance at the 2012 London Games, defending both individual sprint titles and setting an Olympic record of 9.63 seconds in the 100 meters. At the 2016 Rio de Janeiro Olympics, he completed an unprecedented third consecutive sweep of the 100-meter and 200-meter Olympic titles. His 2008 4x100-meter relay gold medal was retroactively stripped in 2017 after teammate Nesta Carter failed a retroactive drug test, leaving Bolt with eight career Olympic gold medals.

Bolt retired from competitive track and field following the 2017 World Championships in London. In his final individual 100-meter race, he took the bronze medal, and he suffered a hamstring injury during the final leg of the 4x100-meter relay. Earlier in his career, he authored the 2010 memoir "My Story: 9:58: The World's Fastest Man," which was reissued and expanded in 2012 as "The Fastest Man Alive: The True Story of Usain Bolt."

Following his athletics career, Bolt explored professional football, training for eight weeks with the Australian club Central Coast Mariners in 2018 and training with German club Borussia Dortmund. He also developed several business ventures, including a brand of electric scooters.