Usain Bolt’s free spirited personality and party animal behavior was on full display Saturday evening.
Bolt brought the house down in spectacular fashion, hugging, greeting and kissing fans and loved ones before engaging entertainer Ding Dong and his entourage in a dance along.
He had indicated earlier that he was in a party mood, when he showed signs of itching to dance when he arrived for the official ceremony during which celebratory speeches and presentations were made to him.
Arriving in a Range Rover, with his torso out the sunroof while clapping to show his appreciation to the crowd, he started moving a little to the music that was playing over the sound system.
However, it was after the final track event of the evening that his true personality unfolded. He won that race, the 100 metres, which was run in his honour and was his final race on Jamaican soil.
He did a celebratory lap, clapping and stopping to do his renowned ‘lightning’ pose, or as Jamaicans know it, ‘to di worl’, before greeting individuals in the stands.
Bolt settled to do his interviews and then let loose again. He climbed the fencing at the grandstand, where he showed a softer side, by embracing whoever wanted to get a glimpse or touch of him.
It was there that he hugged, kissed, touched, greeted, took ‘selfies’ with fans and spent nearly 30 minutes until his management team went for him to warm down.
The occasion merited him warming down on the inside field, unlike the other athletes who had to trek all the way over to Stadium East to do so. And while he did his cooling down exercises surrounded by photographers, Tifa and I-Octane performed and kept the crowd that had stayed back entertained.
With that out of the way, Bolt had the opportunity to do Bolt once again.
Ding Dong had replaced I-Octane with the mic and the DJ was delivering his high-energy songs when Bolt joined him and his crew on the track over by the section of the bleachers facing the grandstand. He skipped and danced to the various moves that the artiste asked of him to the enjoyment of the crowd.
Time constraints meant that MCs Ms Kitty and Oral Tracey had to interrupt Ding Dong’s performance, but Bolt not satisfied, took the mic and called back Ding Dong and they danced and pranced this time for those in the grandstand.
Beenie Man then joined in the fun, performing while Bolt continued to party, but with stories and photographs to prepare and send off, the Loop News team of reporter Job Nelson and photographer Marlon Reid, had to leave the stadium, before seeing Bolt’s next antics.
