Usain Bolt takes it one step too far

After watching Jamaican legend Usain Bolt’s career close in a flop on Saturday night, perhaps other athletes will learn from a decision he may well regret.

Too many sport stars overextend their careers, clinging to glory to the detriment of both themselves and potential successors.

Bolt will always be a legend, and he is the greatest track and field athlete to have walked the face of the earth, but his legacy could have closed perfectly at last year’s Rio Olympics with the last of his treble gold crowns. The sporting fraternity will always remember Bolt for what he achieved, and not for the way his career fizzled out.

Rather than calling it quits at the end of his peak, however, he pushed it one season too far, and he lost his 100m title before pulling up with an apparent hamstring injury in the relay final.

There will always be a place for him in athletics, as a coach, a commentator, or whatever area he may choose, but for a man who was at one point considered nearly invincible, it was disappointing to see his career end the way it did.

Perhaps others can learn from his decision to take it one step too far, and go out with an appropriate bang.