“If you talk that big talk you have to back it up,” he said.
Usain Bolt has some advice for fan-favorite track star Sha’Carri Richardson.
The former world’s fastest man recently told the New York Post that Richardson should stop trash-talking and focus more on training in order to dominate her sport.
“I would tell Sha’Carri to train harder and to be focused and not say too much … If you talk that big talk you have to back it up,” Bolt said. “So just train hard and focus on that and try to come back do it and then talk about it.”
Bolt’s comments came after she was banned for a month after testing positive for marijuana, which cost her a spot on the U.S. team for the 2020 Tokyo Olympics. That was followed by a last-place finish in the 100-meter dash at the Prefontaine Classic in Oregon. Bolt said he and his fellow Jamaican athletes weren’t impressed by Richardson’s smack talk.
“Jamaicans were vexed because she was talking a lot of s**t before the actual race, it is just one of those things,” he relayed to The Post. “Jamaicans don’t like when people talk s**t about us because we are a very proud people. So if you talk about us we are gonna want you to back it up. It definitely gave those women the extra push [to win.]”
Additionally, Bolt said he experienced the same thing with American sprinter Justin Gatlin, who threw some shade at him going into the 2016 Olympics in Brazil.
“That was my thing with Justin Gatlin — because he’s the one that was always talking — so that gives me that energy like, ‘All right you think you’re gonna win let’s go!’ So it does give you that extra boost to wanna beat that person,” he said of Gatlin, who finished second to Bolt in the 2016 Olympics.