LONDON, UK – Jamaican eight-time Olympic champion Usain Bolt will be honored with the Lifetime Achievement Award at BBC Sports Personality of the Year ceremony next week.
Usain Bolt (via CMC)The 36-year-old, who is the only athlete to ever win the 100m and 200m titles at three consecutive Olympics – Beijing 2008, London 2012 and Rio 2016 – will receive the award at Media City UK, Salford, on December 21.
Bolt, a 19-time global champion, is best known for setting the world record in the men’s 100m with a time of 9.58 seconds at the Berlin World Championships in 2009, making him the fastest sprinter in history.
Four days later at the same event, he also broke the world record for the 200m with a time of 19.19 seconds, beating the previous record he had set at the 2008 Beijing Olympics by 0.11 seconds. He still holds both the 100m and 200m world records.
Bolt officially retired from athletics after the 2017 World Championships in London.
Reflecting on how he feels looking back on his 13-year professional career, Usain told BBC Sport: “I feel accomplished. I’ve accomplished all I wanted to in my sport, so it’s just a great feeling to know that with [the] determination and sacrifice that I put in that I could accomplish what I wanted to. I always try to motivate people and say listen, believe in yourself and just go out there and do your best.”
“I’m living proof that if you work hard, you can get anything you want,” he added.
Previous winners of the BBC Sports Personality of the Year Lifetime Achievement award include Billie Jean King, Pelé, Bobby Charlton, Tanni Grey-Thompson, David Beckham, Jessica Ennis-Hill, Chris Hoy and last year’s winner Simone Biles.
