'I just blew my mind': Bolt By Steve Simmons, SUN MEDIA

BEIJING - In a National Stadium silent and in awe, Usain Bolt crossed the finish line, turned his head just slightly to see the clock, and instantly he began to celebrate.

This time, he waited for the race to end before he began to party.

This time, he looked to the clock, saw the world record time, raised his arms in victory and pumped his fist.

This was not like the romp-in-the-park 100 metres run, although it was every metre as exceptional and more. This was that dominant, that certain, that one-sided, but for Bolt, this was also very serious. This was the world record, the gold medal, the birthday present he wanted most. The world may view the 100 metres as the definition of the world's fastest man, but the fastest man views it differently.

"The 200 has been been my love since I was 15," said Bolt, the first man to break the record for 100 and 200 metres in the same Olympic Games.

"I was the youngest ever to win the world junior. The youngest world junior record holder. This race is dear to my heart. I always loved the 200 metres. I always loved the 200 metres. I've been saying all season that the 200 means a lot more than the 100 metres."

Unlike his 100-metre masterpiece, Bolt never let up in his pursuit of the finish line.

"Tonight he was all business," said Dr. Herb Elliott, the Jamaican team doctor and track historian.

"He was having fun in the 100 metres. This was serious."

He was serious enough to watch replays of the 200 not long after setting the world record in 19.30 seconds - breaking the forever classless Michael Johnson's once thought to be unbeatable mark, an assertion Johnson repeated just before the race. And what did Bolt see?

"I just blew my mind, and blew the world's mind," said Bolt, who turned 22 not long after running another race where no one else in the field mattered. "I was saying, I look cool. I was looking at myself and saying 'That guy's fast.'"

"I wanted to leave everything on the track. And I did just that."

Once again he rendered the rest of the field superfluous. Bolt ran in 19.30, taking .02 off Johnson's world record time from the 1996 Summer Olympics.

The rest of the field - some of it marred by two disqualifications, was more than half a second behind. That's a not a competition: That's a one-man show.

Sadly and inevitably, the questions will accompany his monumental victories here. They have to after all that's gone on with track and field champions.

How can a man - any man - run that fast without help? How can any athlete so dominant run times that were once believed impossible without using performance enhancing drugs? The questions in this case are as predictable as the answers.

"Anybody who wants to cast aspersions at our program about drugs I can say just one thing - they can go to hell," said Dr. Elliott. "Let me tell you something. I am the person who tests in Jamaica. I've tested him hundreds of times. Since he's come here (Beijing) he's been tested six times for blood and urine...We are ready at any time at any hour to be tested."

When told he sounds like Charlie Francis in Rome in 1987, Elliott said: "Charlie Francis was an idiot. Charlie Francis had Jamie Astaphan and he was lying about it. I don't have to lie. I'm a professional. I'm an internist. And I wouldn't give children anything that would be injurious to their health."

There is a lot of playful child in the gangly 6-foot-5 Usain Bolt. His pre-race meal is chicken nuggets. Before he races, he does a Jamaican dance and points as if he is accentuating his last name.

And after his victory Wednesday, he fell to the track, kissed the surface, got up, danced some more, and did a silly wobbly legged routine that showed nothing but pure joy.

"I'm a lightning Bolt," he said smiling. "My name is Lightning Bolt."

"This is a teenager basically," said Dr. Elliott. "He's a young boy and he's still like he was at 16. It hasn't (even) reached his head. It will never reach his head. He has a good mother and father. They will knock any egos out of his head."

There is still one more race here for Bolt, his part in the 4 X 100 metre relay. Another chance for gold. Another likely world record.

The first week of the Games clearly belonged to Michael Phelps. The second week belongs to Bolt: This is breathtaking. This is history. This may never happen again.

steve.simmons@sunmedia.ca