Just 26!

Hubert Lawrence, Gleaner Writer

For one man to have four Olympic sprint titles and five individual world records is brilliant. To do that before age 26 is monumental. That's what Usain Bolt has done.

It feels like he's been around forever. After all, he started beating the world a month before his 16th birthday. In Kingston, he won the World Junior Championship 200-metre gold medal. That was 2002.

He has taken his blows in the decade that has followed. Injury and innuendo have given way to the realisation by most observers that he is cut from a different cloth.

Though he is a late convert to the 100, he has only lost to former world-record holder Asafa Powell and world champions Tyson Gay and Yohan Blake since his first official 100-metre race in Ostrava in 2007.

He has been even more dominant over 200 metres, with one recent loss to Blake the only blemish on his record since the start of 2008.

Throw in 31 runs faster than 10 seconds for the 100 and 25 faster than 20 seconds for 200 metres and you have a career that one all-time great thinks Bolt should end right now. Hurdles king Edwin Moses recommends immediate retirement after the sprint double-double completed at the London Olympics.

I understand the sentiment. Retirement now would make Bolt like Rocky Marciano, the heavyweight boxer who never lost a fight and retired undefeated.

Marciano was 33 when he walked away from boxing. Bolt is just 26.

Just two weeks ago in this space, I guessed my way through the future in an article entitled 'What's Next'. Here's a quick flashback.

- Usain Bolt has done almost all he can possibly do in the 100 and 200. He's done the double-double and owns both world records. Perhaps his Daegu 100 false start loss will take him back to the short sprints at the 2013 World Championships, but surely the 400 will beckon thereafter.

He does the things that no one else can do, and no one has won major international titles at 100, 200 and 400 metres. Herb McKenley came closest with silver medals at 100 and 400 metres and a place in the 200 final in the 1948 Olympics.

Don't expect him to give up the 200. That's his favourite event. With that as a given, he might be chasing Michael Johnson into the history books. The outstanding American is the only man to have won big 200/400 doubles. He did it at the 1995 World Championships and again at the 1996 Olympics.

- Maybe a run at Johnson's 400-metre world record of 43.18 - and the sub-43 barrier - is on the cards. Perhaps training for the 400 will make him stronger, and that could help him in the 200.

The 400 metres has a young, capable champion. Grenada's Kirani James won in Daegu and London and has gone under 44 seconds. You can be sure that Lashawn Merritt, the previous Olympic and World Champion, will be back up to speed in 2013. The road to supremacy goes through them.

Staying at the top in the 200 won't be easy either. His training partner Yohan Blake has run 19.26 and 19.44 seconds. Remarkably, Jamaica has four other active sub-20 men; Olympic bronze medal winner Warren Weir, Jason Young, Asafa Powell and the World University Games champion, Rasheed Dwyer. That's tremendous depth.

In fact, that group is so good that they should probably take a run at the 4x200-metre world record at the Penn Relays or the Jamaica Invitational, next season. The existing mark belongs to Mike Marsh, Leroy Burrell, Floyd Heard and Carl Lewis of the Santa Monica Track Club, at one minute, 18.68 seconds.

That would give Bolt his fourth relay world record and set him on his way into a new chapter of his great career in athletics.

By the way, Lewis anchored that world record in 1994 when he was almost 33.

Moses didn't step away until after the 1988 Olympics when his bid for a third Olympic gold medal in the 400 hurdles fell short and earned him a bronze. He was 33.

Bolt should stick around a little longer.

Hubert Lawrence has covered athletics since 1987.