Usain Bolt, the Olympic gold medalist and current fastest sprinter to have graced the track, says that video games helped him to become a champion.
During an interview with the BBC, Bolt spoke about how his love of gaming helped his Olympic career. “I feel like it kind of helped my hunger, I would say,” explained Bolt. “You know what I mean? To always want to win. But I feel like it, in a way, kind of helped out with the track and field because now when you get on the track you have the same mentality as when you’re playing video games. You just want to win.”
While Bolt will forever be known for his rapid pace and signature victory pose, the athlete teased that if he’d grown up now he might of instead become a gamer by profession. “Do you think if you were growing up now, you would want to be an eSports star or Twitch streamer rather than an athlete?” asked BBC reporter Steffan Powell.
“Probably, probably,” responds Bolt. “I think I was so much into video games when I was younger because sometimes I would skip training to go to the video games store to play video games. My coach would call my dad and tell him, ‘Listen, he didn’t come to training today,’ and then my dad would be like, ‘Why didn’t you go to training?’ and I had no answer. You know what I mean? So that was just one thing, I know if we had what we have now I would definitely be a gamer, for sure.”
Bolt closed the interview by saying that he would “definitely” recommend that athletes out there use video games as a way to switch off. “It takes your mind off everything because you’re so focused on trying to win and trying to do good in a game that you don’t worry about anything else.”
Bolt isn’t the only high-profile person who’s recently spoken about their love of games. During an interview with IGN, Eternals actor Kumail Nanjuani detailed how he spends what little time he has between projects playing games on his PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X.
Jared Moore is a freelance writer for IGN. You can follow him on Twitter.
Source: https://nordic.ign.com/news/52344/usain-bolt-says-video-games-helped-him-become-an-olympic-champion
