The science is in: if you want to become an Olympic champion like Usain Bolt, just get really good at Mario Kart.*
In a wild hologram interview with the BBC made possible by PORTL Holograms, the fastest man alive spoke about his love for video games after destroying BBC gaming reporter Steffan Powell in a game of FIFA. “For me, those are the things that excite me the most about video games. Just learning and being the best at it, you know what I mean?”
Bolt continues on to talk about how it relates back to his career. “I feel like it kind of helped my hunger, I would say, to always want to win,” he explains, “But I feel like it in a way kind of helped out with the track and field, because now when you get on the track you have the same mentality as when you’re playing video games. You just want to win.”
According to the BBC, Usain Bolt is quite competitive when it comes to games like Mario Kart and Mortal Kombat. “So what you’re nearly saying there, Usain,” Powell asks, “is that you became world champion and world record holder because you were very good at Mario Kart.” To this, Bolt laughs and responds, “It helped, it helped.”
Bolt also expressed that he believes video games are a great way to unwind, mentioning as well that he would sometimes skip his training to play video games to the ire of his coach and father. Olympic champions, they’re just like us! I also personally love to play video games after a long day of being the slowest woman alive.
The interview also involved Powell asking if Bolt would ever want to have a game named after him, like Daley Thompson’s Decathlon for the Commodore 64 or Lee Carvallo’s Putting Challenge. “That’d be cool,” Bolt replies, “Something that every athlete wants in their sports — if they’re gonna make a game about track and field I definitely should be on the cover.”
Of course, it wouldn’t be the first time we’ve seen Bolt in video game media, with his notable inclusion in an ad for Pokemon Sun & Moon where he was a member of Team Skull. I personally would love to see a QWOP-style Usain Bolt game, as I believe it would be chaotic and hilarious trying to go as fast as him while desperately grappling with the controls of that game. Y’all remember QWOP?
*The actual science on this is in no way in.
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