Yet another milestone for super Bolt

Leighton Levy, Gleaner Writer

Jamaican sprint legend Usain Bolt continues to add to his already significant lore as an international sports star, as on Monday night he became the first person to star in Britain's Channel 4's distinctive on-screen station identification (Ident).

According to the Guardian newspaper, Bolt is featured in clip striking his famous 'to the worl' pose after winning a race and, as the camera slowly pans out, his outstretched arm appears to form part of the Channel 4 logo. The station usually uses clever post-production techniques and camera angles to create its logo from buildings or scenery, rather than people.

Bolt is the first human to be featured in this manner and the station's network creative director, Tom Tagholm, described the move as a great coup for Channel 4. The Ident trails the channel's exclusive coverage of the IAAF World Athletics Championships, which will be held in Daegu, South Korea, August 27 to September 4, and debuted Monday night and will air on rotation in the run-up to the start of the coverage. Last September, Channel 4 won the television rights for the next two World Athletics Championships ahead of the BBC, which has aired the event for the past 27 years.

Bolt is defending champion in both the 100 and 200 metres from the last World Championships held in Berlin Germany in 2009. In Berlin, the super sprinter Bolt obliterated his own world records set at the Olympic Games in China by posting 9.58 seconds and 19.19 seconds in 100m and 200m, respectively, effectively staking his claim as the greatest sprinter of all time.

Bolt is expected to continue his dominance at the World Championships at the end of the month and to take that form into the highly anticipated Olympic Games set for London next summer. It will be the third time the city will be hosting the Games, having done so in 1908 and 1948.

Bolt has a significant following worldwide and recently hit a milestone of five million fans on Facebook, yet another landmark in his illustrious career.