 "Usain Bolt of Jamaica poses for photographers after he won the men's 200 meter race during the Diamond League anniversary games at The Stadium, in the Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park in London.")
One metre, two metres, three metres... and he was gone. Somewhere in the middle of the 200m final in Rio on Thursday night, the men who had somehow managed to keep up with him up till that point, saw a familiar blur of yellow and black whiz past them. Eyes bulging and shoulders pumping, Usain Bolt, almost at the flick of a switch, sped away like a lorry on turbocharge. And then he went farther, and farther. Andre De Grasse's sheer helplessness was encapsulated in a deafening shriek as he crossed the line. The 21-year-old Canadian had just finished second to a man who can sprint faster than Mark Cavendish on a bicycle. Yes, that fast.
His run to the finish line in Jamaica's 4x100m relay win on Friday night was equally emphatic.
Before the Olympics, a curious fan had asked the former American sprinter Michael Johnson, "How do you beat this guy?" "You just don't," was Johnson's terse response. Justin Gatlin, Yohan Blake, Tyson Gay, Asafa Powell and millions of others will tell you the same. Once in a hundred years comes along a man with the paranormal athletic dexterity of Bolt. People who change the face of a sport and set unfathomable benchmarks for how fast a human being can go just don't get beaten. Try spotting a polar bear in the Atacama Desert instead.
The moments before a Bolt race are often strangely jovial. No deep breaths or jangling nerves - the Jamaican is like a delirious fan preparing himself for a Bob Marley concert. Just that the moments after one are even better: the jumping into the crowd and posing for selfies, the giving away of a souvenir or two, and that unmistakable pose with his body slightly bent, both index fingers pointing to the sky.
Examples of such crowd captivation in sport are difficult to find. Where have you seen something like this before? Those who were fortunate enough to be alive in 1974 would recall Muhammad Ali taking the streets of Kinshasa hostage and dancing to the chants of "Ali boma ye" with thousands of fans before his "Rumble in the Jungle" fight with George Foreman.
Michael Jordan's former teammates would happily confess how the superstar was mobbed by hundreds of people in any part of the world the Chicago Bulls travelled to. David Halberstam, the Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist, in fact, once said he saw the most remarkable thing in his life during a village tour in Congo: young kids sporting Jordan's #23 Bulls jersey. With the going of Ali and Jordan, many would have liked to believe that such fervent athlete worship was extinct.
But as it happens so often when he runs, the cynics didn't see Bolt coming here too. While shooting a TV show in the backwaters of Brazil a couple of years ago, a group of people failed to recognise David Beckham. And, it's safe to say that Beckham was the most recognisable global phenomenon of his day. Given Bolt's charisma and enormous likeability, the chances of him meeting a similar fate seem highly improbable. Bolt is now perhaps the most recognisable athlete in the world. It is impossible to think of someone with his kind of pompous self-belief and showmanship.
How else can you can explain an athlete's ability to pull in crowds in a country that finds itself amidst a financial crisis? Yes, the empty blotches of blue seats around the bend in his first two races were a pity. But keen watchers would tell you that other events have fared worse. Mo Farah defended his 10,000m crown earlier this week in front of a stadium that was only half-full. Bolt, to his credit, attracted almost more than double that number.
More laudable is his achievement of turning around the ignominious image of a sport that has endured such a wretched year, one filled with doping scandals. Only Bolt could have rekindled people's faith in a sport that was once populated largely by clean athletes. Fans were desperately craving for one final flash of lightning, and he did not disappoint. His victory in the "good vs evil" battle over Gatlin in the 100m was exactly the kind of tonic athletics needed. One can only imagine how much these Games would have been appreciated had it not been for Bolt. That he can pose for photographs even before finishing a race obviously helps.
As he bids farewell to the Olympics, fans can soak themselves in the Bolt phenomenon one final time. But more than the fans, it will be his fellow athletes who will miss the thrill of competing against the greatest sprinter who has ever roamed this planet.
Perhaps Bolt's biggest achievement this Games hasn't been a gold medal, but a delightful pose in front of the camera. During his victory lap after the 100m final, the medal winners of the women's heptathlon, which included the great Jessica Ennis-Hill, stopped the 30-year-old midway and asked for a picture. Bolt happily obliged. That's how much they love him.
