Usain Bolt Has Never Run a Mile (No, Really)

Usain Bolt will get the chance to capture more sprinting gold medals in the Olympics this month, in the 100 meter, 200 meter, and 4×100 meter relay. The Jamaican sprinter is so fast, he’s earned himself the nickname Lightning Bolt—but how fast could he run a longer distance? Say, a mile?

The New Yorker recently tried to speculate what time Bolt would clock on a mile run, and found that it’s possible he might not fare better than a pretty good member of a high school track team—his body, tall and muscular, is better suited for sprinting than distance running. But there’s no way of knowing for sure whether his mile run would take four, five, or six minutes, because he has never tried.

That’s right: The fastest man in the world has never done the thing pretty much every American high schooler has to do. Bolt’s agent Ricky Simms confirmed to the New Yorker in an email statement, “Usain has never run a mile.”

But hey, at 29 years old, he still has plenty of time to try out a new hobby.

[The New Yorker]