Eschewing delirious crowds at the airport, Olympic sprinting champion Usain Bolt returned to Jamaica in uncharacteristically low-key style.
There were no adoring throngs, none of his signature skyward points or other antics. There was just a quietly organized news conference on Tuesday at Bolt’s restaurant and nightclub in Kingston with a few dozen journalists, business people, and politicians in attendance.
Bolt’s publicist, Carole Beckford, said the 6-foot-5 superstar quietly returned home on Saturday, and nobody but his inner circle knew he was back in his Caribbean homeland, which adores him yet wants a piece of him at almost every turn.
Last week in Belgium, hours after his last race of the season, Bolt said he was a bit nervous about returning to Jamaica, where his countrymen celebrated each of his three victories at the London Olympics with intense enthusiasm.
Crowds of impassioned Jamaicans danced, shouted and embraced in the streets as he dominated the competition.
“I’ve seen what Jamaican fans are like when I go back home. That is more scary than anything else,” he told reporters in Brussels during the Diamond League.
At Tuesday’s news conference in Jamaica’s capital, the world’s fastest man thanked his coach, his family and his fervent fans for all their support, saying that “there were a lot of doubters” after a sometimes challenging season.
Speaking to the cameras, a subdued Bolt added, “I have one thing to say: Never doubt a champion.”
For weeks before the Olympics, Jamaicans had been debating whether Bolt or his rival and team-mate Yohan Blake would win in London. Blake, Bolt’s blisteringly fast workout partner, had beaten Bolt in the 100 and 200-metre finals at Jamaica’s Olympic trials and Bolt’s subsequent withdrawal from a meet in Monaco set up one of the most anticipated story lines of the 2012 Olympics.