Blasting Usain Bolt, IOC President Jacques Rogge misuses bully pulpit

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BEIJING -- The audience for the Olympics is losing young people to the X Games, music videos and computers.

Track and field is losing its audience, period, in Europe and the United States.

So what was International Olympic Committee President Jacques Rogge thinking when he lambasted Jamaican sprinter Usain Bolt for some crowd-pleasing theatrics, which Rogge felt was disrespectful to the competitors?

Only spoiling two moments so electric they might get a few more people interested in track and field.

And if you wanted to take athletes to task, Jacques, why didn’t you rip Russian pole vaulter Yelena Isinbayeva for her disdain? Throughout that competition, she spent most of her time with a towel over her face, deigning to lift part of it occasionally to see what was going on.

And, Jacques, you look like a coward. You will take on a wondrous, young athlete -– Bolt turned 22 Thursday -- but you have been notoriously silent about China’s disrespect about greater openness and respect for human rights. And you let them stage an opening ceremony in which performers were all but tortured. (Only North Korea could have done it better, the ceremony’s director said.)

Meeting with reporters from several wire services Thursday, Rogge said Bolt’s behavior at the end of his world-record runs in the 100 and 200 meters was ‘not the way we perceive being a champion.’’

Please.

Yes, Bolt was showboating over the final 20 meters of the 100, turning sideways, holding out his arms and hands as if to say, ‘Give it up for me,’’ then slapping his heart with his right arm.

In the 200, he flopped on his back after the finish and shimmied during his victory lap.

Rogge thought Bolt should have spent more time congratulating his fellow competitors.

He would have been waiting a week for them to catch up with him.

Bolt’s immediate exuberance is what made those moments more than just very fast races.

Rogge thought Bolt needs to mature.

That made the IOC president sound like an old man who lived most of his life in an effete, upper-class world.

Rogge is 66. He was a three-time Olympian in sailing.

Jacques, your fuddy-duddy is showing.

-- Philip Hersh

Photo of Jacques Rogge by Mark Ralston / AFP / Getty Images