Brains over beauty or brawn, any day. That used to be my belief till the world got a Bolt from the blue last year.

Beijing, and the rest of China, remembers the tall, swanky Jamaican with fondness from the 2008 Olympic Games. He came to the Chinese capital as the 100 m record holder, no doubt. But he still had the Asafa Powells and Tyson Gays breathing down his neck. But then came Aug 16, 2008 "when he slowed up, stretched his arms out wide and put his palms out, then slapped his chest" and silenced any doubters still left inside the Bird's Nest or beyond its wide steel girders.

I was not in the National Stadium on that day to see lightning Bolt strike and shave 0.03 second off his own world record of 9.72 seconds. I wasn't lucky enough to see him shatter Michael Johnson's 12-year-old record either. But I saw the Bird's Nest coming alive when the men's 100x4 relay was announced. I heard the buzz over Bolt, felt it getting wild with each passing second and couldn't believe the applause for a foreign athlete could drown my own voice in a stadium (almost) full of Chinese when he walked onto the track. Such was (and is) the popularity of the Jamaican in China. He honored the roaring welcome, with a third amazing sprint, which many experts said was faster than his 9.69-second 100m dash a few days ago.