Jamaican track and field legend Usain Bolt has made a bold claim about ex-Real Madrid superstar Cristiano Ronaldo. The retired sprinter said that the Portuguese would beat him in a race. “Cristiano would win for sure,” he told Marca. “He’s still active and he works hard every day. For me, he’s a super athlete.
“He’s always at the top of his sport,” he said. “He works very hard and is always focused. I think right now he would be faster than me.” Bolt, considered the greatest sprinter of all time with records at 100m, 200m and the 4x100m relay, is a football fanatic and even tried to build a professional career in Australia after hanging up his spikes.
“I think that if I had stayed in Europe I would have achieved it and it would have been better,” the man nicknamed Lightning Bolt, from Sherwood Content in Jamaica, said about his football career. “My thinking when going to Australia was to be away from the media, away from everyone. It was going to help me to work with less pressure but it didn’t work out that way. I think if I had played in Europe I would have had more help, I would have lasted longer and I would have been successful.”
Bolt retired from sprinting after the 2017 season and began training with several football clubs in order to gain a professional contract, among them Norwegian side Stromsgodset, Australian side Central Coast Mariners and Maltese club Valetta. In January of 2019, he called time on his football career.
Bolt tested positive for COVID-19 back in August, and has also been thinking deeply about racism and equality. “I think [racism] is all over the world,” he said. “It’s something very big and it’s tragic that it continues to happen. It’s something that worries me because I’m a black man, but during my days in the world of athletics it wasn’t something I saw much – a little, but not much. But I’m worried by what I’m seeing throughout the world. Hopefully we’ll be able to discover how to work and improve the situation.”
Ronaldo is actually a year older than Bolt, but is still playing football at the highest level. The Portuguese is one of the most decorated footballers in history – a selection of his honours include five Ballon d’Or titles, three Premier League titles, two La Liga titles, five Champions League titles and Euro 2016.
Featured image courtesy of Twitter.
