LONDON — Track and field, once the most global of sports in reach and resonance, is now a niche diversion, outpaced long ago by the likes of soccer, basketball and tennis. But there has been nothing niche about Usain Bolt, whose winning ways and winning manner have translated to the masses like few athletes in any sport.
So it has gone for nearly a decade: track and field struggles with doping, corruption and relevance while Bolt soars high above the scorched earth with a grin on his face.
His ability to suspend disbelief in this rightfully skeptical era, if only in very short bursts of force-of-nature speed, has been one of the great balancing acts.