Good?

All right, I won't take up too much of your time.

I know it's Friday night.

I know you guys want to get out, have some fun, and all I know is how to be fast.

So I want to start with telling you that the reason, one of the reasons why I'm here is because I believe that as an elite athlete, it's my obligation, my duty to be able to pass on a knowledge that I needed to be able to make me successful on to the next generation and generation after that.

And why I said is because track and field, no matter if you do distance, throws, jumps, sprints, whatever, you're lucky if you get to turn professional.

And why I said is because there's no handpick.

We all know that you got to run as hard as you can, as fast as you can, as long as you can, just to get a phone call and maybe a letter in the mail, and hopefully from a school that you desire to go to.

So what I'm going to tell you tonight is one of the stories I've been, I've been in track and field for what, maybe over 20 years of just professional track and field.

And that was my whole, that was my whole adult life.

So with that, I've won Olympic gold medals, world championship medals, broken the world record, had my ups and downs.

It was a beautiful ride.

One story stands out to me the most, and I wanted to bring it here, and I was telling Gary about this, is that I want to talk about 2017, my world championships, when I beat Usain Bolt.

And why I'm going to talk about this, not because I beat Usain Bolt, but what led up to that moment in time of taking that victory.

In 2016, I fractured my ankle, and I still made the Olympic team, rehabbed, got an Olympic team, medaled.

After I got that silver medal, I still felt hollow, because I wasn't my whole self.

So going into 2017, I had issues from my ankle leading up to my hip.

So I wasn't able to be the best starter I used to be.

I was a great starter, one of the world-class best starters.

When you watch a lot of my I couldn't do that in 17, because my hip would not allow me.

So I had to change my whole technique.

Had to change who I was.

And usually as an athlete, we have our habits, right?

We run from the front, we run from the back, we pace, we do whatever, and that's what has led us to our success.

Now mind you, from 2017 before, I usually was known as the best starter in the world.

I had to go home and think about it.

And in one moment, I realized watching old tapes of YouTubes of myself, I wasn't leading the pack in college.

I wasn't running at the front.

I was running people down.

So at some point in time, I wasn't the best start in the world.

I had to learn and teach myself how to be a better starter, to compete against people like Usain Bolt, Tyson Gay, Johan Blakes.

So what I did is I humbled myself.

And I said, if I could do that and be successful then, I can retrain myself to be just as successful now.

So I started on that mission.

We got ready for World Championships in 2017.

And I worked hard every day.

I didn't take a day off.

Saturdays, Sundays, worked all the way through.

And when I finished completing the task that I needed, which is to be a finisher and not a starter, I was confident in myself.

Leading up to that, I didn't want to be able to have a And usually when you run against guys like Usain, his coach and himself are going to watch what you're going to do.

We got to the World Championships.

We're training.

We're getting ready at the warmup track.

I get to my first round.

The crowd is full of people. 100,000 people in the stands.

London.

This is Usain Bolt's farewell tour.

Last championship.

Last 100 meters he's ever going to run.

Ever.

I get to the line, my prelims.

And we're going down the lane.

Lane one, such and such.

Lane two, such and such.

Lane three.

And everybody's cheering for him, clapping for him.

Then you get to my lane.

Lane four, Justin Gatlin.

And I hear a couple of rumbles.

Boo.

And I didn't think anything of it.

And you know, I was basically like the top competitor to Usain and everybody else in the field.

So get through the first round.

Stick to what my plan was not to show my my competitors that I had a finish.

So I had a good start, maintain, went through.

Prelims are usually easy.

I get to the semis.

Warm up, line back up.

Lane one, lane two, lane three.

Get to my lane again.

The rumbles are louder.

Boo.

So you're hearing the whole stadium is starting to kind of get this and kind of feeling this.

I said, OK, I see what's going on here.

As I get in the blocks, I remember.

I'm not here for them.

I'm here for myself.

I'm here for my team.

It was nothing.

They couldn't change who I was.

I knew who I was.

So as I made it to the semis, going into the finals.

We had about an hour and a half before we had to go into the finals.

And as we walked down into the stadium and the stadium opened up and you see more more people in the stadium.

It becomes electrifying.

It's the finals, the world championships, the last one that Usain is going to run.

The crowd is going crazy.

It's his second home.

And as we went down the roll call once again, lane one, lane two, lane three.

And as I get to Usain.

Have you ever been outside of a stadium where it's like people are shooting a goal or scoring a goal in the stands.

Your fastest people from each heat are usually in the middle, seated.

For whatever reason, they put me in lane eight.

So as I got to lane eight, the energy that they gave Usain was the same as they gave for me, but in reverse.

It was the loudest boo I've ever heard in my life.

And I remember thinking, if I ever got booed like this, I would just shrivel up and die.

It happened to me.

I didn't shrivel up and die.

It actually gave me motivation.

As I stood there.

I wanted to prove over 100,000 people wrong.

I wanted to tell them and show them who I was.

So as we got down the blocks, Usain's in lane three all the way over here.

I'm in lane eight all the way over here.

And if you ever ran a sprint in a straightaway, to be able to know where your top opponents are, you need to be next to them, at least a lane or two away from them.

So in three and out in front of everybody, Usain goes in hot pursuit chasing down.

I get off the block.

As I get off the block and get to 50 meters of the race with everyone else, I'm in fifth place.

This is my moment.

What I've been working on at this moment was to be a finisher, not a starter.

And as I got to 51 meters, 52, and so on and so on, I started walking people down step by step.

As we got to the finish line, I was able to lean over and look over across all these people and see that I was beating Usain, Christian Coleman, and I was winning this race.

And as I crossed that line, I knew automatically I already won the race.

But it was so close, and the UK didn't want me to win.

It took them forever to bring it up on the scoreboard.

So everyone's walking around.

Christian Coleman's like this.

He thought he won.

Usain was like, he at least thought he got second.

And then my name pops up.

And when my name pops up, the audience, huh?

And I look at everybody in the stadium, and I say, shh.

That was me silencing them.

Because I stepped into that arena knowing who I was, competing at a level that I knew I could compete at, and beating the opponents I knew I could beat.

I wasn't going to let strangers or that I sealed the deal in this moment.

I could have said, hey, you know what, this is Usain Bolt's last race.

Let him have it.

He's won them all.

It's gonna be a fairytale ending.

It's gonna be beautiful.

No.

If you're gonna line up to run, that means you signed up to compete.

And you got to compete to the best of your ability.

And that's what I did.

And as I hushed the crowd, if you've seen the video, the first thing Usain comes over to me, he whispers in my ear, he said, hey, congratulations.

If I couldn't do it, I wouldn't want anybody else to do it.

And this is my top competitor that I've had throughout my whole career.

Who could easily snug me, walked off the track, whatever.

But it shows you that a champion recognizes a champion.

And a champion knows who they are.

And I'm telling you this because as you're at the age you are now, from middle school, to high school to college, you're going to encounter a lot of obstacles.

You have to overcome a lot.

There's going to be athletes who are going to be faster than you, even on your team.

There's going to be people you're not going to even get along with, sometimes coaches.

But stay true to who you are.

Believe who you are.

From that moment on, I went in from 17 going into 18 and 19 with a different kind of confidence, knowing I had a target on my back.

But I had to work harder for it.

I had to stay diligent.

And for that So, I ask you and I challenge you all, know what your fears are.

Know what your plan is going forward.

I set up a system that I used throughout my whole career in 20 from 20 for 20 last 20 years.

I call the fast system.

It's the same steps that you have for the 100 meters.

You have a start, you have a dry phase.

You have a transition, you have a finish.

With the fast system, what you'll be able to, I'm sorry.

With the fast system, you're breaking it down, fast is focus, the A is accountability, the S is structure.

The T is to transition.

These are things that you're going to use in your races, but also in your everyday walk of life.

You have to stay focused on what your goals and your desires are.

You have to have accountability for yourself.

You have to build some kind of structure to be able to accomplish your goals.

The transition is going to be hard because winning is not easy.

And when you finish, the finish line is going to take care of itself.

You're going to go through it.

You're going to go through it.