EUGENE, Oregon, (Reuters) – Having raced a zebra and a giraffe, American Shawn Crawford is in a unique position to gauge Jamaican sensation Usain Bolt’s explosive impact on sprinting.
“He woke up all sprinters,” Crawford, a silver medallist behind world record holder Bolt at last year’s Beijing Olympics, told Reuters in a telephone interview.
“It is no longer good (enough) to run 9.9s or 9.8s (in the 100 metres) or 19.7s or 19.8s (in the 200). “When Usain dropped both of those records (in Beijing), he raised the bar.”
Crawford, who beat a giraffe and accused a zebra of a false start before losing a re-run on a 2003 television show, added: “Sprinting is at a different level, a new level.”
Bolt blew away the old world records at last August’s Olympics with new marks of 9.69 seconds in the 100 metres and 19.30 in the 200 in China.
Crawford, the 2004 Athens gold medallist over 200 metres, only competed against Bolt over the longer distance in Beijing.
Finishing fourth, Crawford was elevated to second when two runners — Churandy Martina of Netherland Antilles and American Wallace Spearmon – were disqualified.
Crawford subsequently gave his silver medal to Martina, saying it that was not the way he wanted to win a medal.
The impact of Bolt’s success has spread beyond the current crop of sprinters, Crawford said.
“He woke up not only those of us running now, but the youth too,” the 31-year-old American said. “They are saying ‘Usain Bolt did it, I can do it.’
“That is the whole idea of lfe, to wake up the future so we can be better in the future,” said Crawford, who faces Bolt over 100 in Toronto on June 11.
“Tyson (Gay) has already displayed that we are going to see times like Bolt’s this year.”
Gay, the 2007 world champion who was slowed during last year’s Olympics by a hamstring injury, clocked a personal best 19.58 seconds — the third-fastest 200 metres ever — at last weekend’s New York grand prix.
Only Bolt and former world record holder Michael Johnson have ever run faster.
