In the course of a final interview given by Usain Bolt to BBC journalist Steffan Powell, the former Jamaican sprinter thanked Mario Kart and the hours he spent racing on the virtual circuits of Nintendo’s iconic arcade racing series for helping him achieve success. of his sporting career.
The legendary Olympic champion, current 100m world record holder, admitted not only enjoying video games but integrating them into his training routine.
The reason for such a decision is explained by Bolt himself: “For me, there is one thing that excites me particularly in video games and it is their ability to make you learn from mistakes and to encourage you to be better and better. Video games have helped me. to cultivate the right hunger for victories. For this reason, in a certain sense, video games have really been of great help in my sporting activities and more generally in athletics, because in this kind of competitions you can breathe the same atmosphere that ‘is in video games “.
Pressed by his interviewer to delve further into the subject, Bolt once again cited Mario Kart as his ideal videogame pastime in the training routine and argued, jokingly, that if he had started his competitive activity today, perhaps he would have looked with greater interest at the eSport and a career as a pro player.