Bolt to receive BBC Lifetime Achievement Award
Usain Bolt (centre) embraces his mother Jennifer Bolt and father Wellesley Bolt during a farewell ceremony at the IAAF World Championships in London in 2017
Source: Jamaica Gleaner Daniel Wheeler
With gratitude for a career that has made him legendary, eight-time Olympic gold medallist Usain Bolt will be honoured by the BBC with the Lifetime Achievement Award at the BBC Sports Personality of the Year awards.
The announcement was made yesterday as Bolt will be honoured at the award ceremony honouring the English sportsperson who has achieved the most in a calendar year.
Bolt’s glittering career ended in 2017 as a 19-time global champion, 11 of those coming at the World Athletics Championships. The 100 metres and 200 metres world records still belong to Bolt, now 36, who won the first of his eight Olympic medals at the 2008 Olympic Games in Beijing. Bolt had previously won the Overseas Sports Personality award three times during his 13-year career.
In reflecting on his career and achievements, he said that he felt complete knowing that he accomplished every goal he had set for himself before he bade farewell to the sport five years ago.
“I feel accomplished, I accomplished all I wanted to in my sport. It’s a great feeling to know that with determination and sacrifice that I put in I could accomplish what I wanted to do,” Bolt told BBC Sport yesterday. “I try to motivate people by telling them to believe in themselves.”
The seeds of what he would achieve were planted, according to him, when he took silver in the 200m and 4x100m relay at the 2007 World Championships in Osaka, which he said opened his eyes to the hard work necessary for greatness, which was instilled by his father in his journey,
“I’m living proof that if you work hard you can get anything you want. One thing my dad taught me was if you want something, work hard for it. He showed me by working hard to provide for me, my mom, and my sister. So when he told me I believed,” Bolt said.
Bolt will be joining a special group of past winners of the lifetime achievement award who include last year’s recipient, multiple Olympic gold medallist gymnast Simone Biles, tennis legend Billie Jean King, football great Pele, Bobby Charlton, David Beckham, and Jessica Ennis-Hill, an Olympic and world heptathlon champion.
The ceremony will take place next Wednesday in Salford, England.
daniel.wheeler@gleanerjm.com