title: Alicia Keys

text: Keys and her husband Swizz Beatz are also avid art collectors. On July 26, 2019, "Bloomberg News" reported Keys and Beatz were avidly purchasing works by artist Tschabalala Self and that they decided to keep two of the pieces they bought and donate one to the Brooklyn Museum. Less than a month later, Keys and Beatz revealed their plans for an art and music center including that they plan to have the center located in Macedon in upstate New York and to name it "Dean Collection Music & Art Campus". Through the Dean Collection, they also collect notable artists such as Henry Taylor, Jordan Casteel, Kehinde Wiley, Toyin Ojih Odutola, Arthur Jafa, and Cy Gavin. Keys and Dean are co-chairs of the Gordon Parks Foundation, which permanently preserves the work of Gordon Parks, the pioneering photographer, filmmaker, musician and activist. The couple acquired what is now the largest private holding of Gordon Parks's images, part of the Dean Collection, the couple's philanthropic organization and family collection of international contemporary art. In the summer of 2018, Keys and Dean were featured on the cover of "Cultured Magazine" where they delved into Gordon Parks's works and The Dean Collection.


title: Alicia Keys

text: For over a decade, Keys was in a low-profile romantic relationship with her long-time good friend and collaborator Kerry Brothers Jr. until 2008. Keys later dated hip hop artist-producer Swizz Beatz whom she married on July 31, 2010. They had their first son on October 14, 2010. She gave birth to their second boy on December 27, 2014.


title: Isla Fisher

text: Isla Lang Fisher (; born 3 February 1976) is an Australian actress and author. Born to Scottish parents in Oman, she moved to Australia at age six where she began appearing in television commercials. Fisher came to prominence for her portrayal of Shannon Reed on the Australian soap opera "Home and Away" from 1994–97, for which she received two Logie Award nominations.


title: Isla Fisher

text: After various appearances on television and stage, Fisher made a successful transition to Hollywood with her portrayal of Mary Jane in the 2002 live-action adaptation of "Scooby-Doo", and has since played prominent roles in films such as "Wedding Crashers" (2005), "Confessions of a Shopaholic" (2009), "Bachelorette" (2012), "The Great Gatsby", "Now You See Me" (both 2013), and "Nocturnal Animals" (2016). Her other notable credits include "Swimming Pool" (2001), "I Heart Huckabees" (2004), "London" (2005), "Wedding Daze" (2006), "The Lookout", "Hot Rod" (both 2007), "Definitely, Maybe" (2008), "Burke & Hare" (2010), "Visions" (2015), "Grimsby", "Keeping Up with the Joneses" (both 2016), "Tag" (2018), "The Beach Bum", "Greed" (both 2019), and "Blithe Spirit" (2020). She has also voiced characters in animated films such as "Horton Hears a Who!" (2008), "Rango" (2011), and


title: Isla Fisher

text: Outside of film, Fisher played a recurring role on the fourth and fifth seasons of "Arrested Development" (2013, 2018–19), and currently stars as Mary on "Wolf Like Me" (2022–present). Fisher has authored two young adult novels and the "Marge in Charge" book series. She is married to Sacha Baron Cohen, with whom she has three children.


title: Isla Fisher

text: Fisher was born in Muscat, Oman on 3 February 1976, she is the daughter of Elspeth Reid and Brian Fisher from Scotland. Her father was working as a banker in Oman for the United Nations. Fisher and her family returned to their hometown of Bathgate, Scotland, then moved to Perth, Western Australia, when she was six. She has four brothers, and said that she had a "great" upbringing in Perth with a "very outdoorsy life". She has stated that her "sensibility is Australian", she has a "laid-back attitude to life", and that she feels "very Australian". She considers herself a feminist. Her mother and siblings live in Athens, Greece, while her father lives in Frankfurt, Germany. Fisher attended Swanbourne Primary School and Methodist Ladies' College, Perth. She appeared in lead roles in school productions such as "Little Shop of Horrors". At 21, she attended L'École Internationale de Théâtre Jacques Lecoq in Paris, where she studied clown, mime, musical theatre and commedia dell'arte.


title: Isla Fisher

text: Fisher made her first on-screen appearances in commercials on Australian television at the age of 9, and made her professional acting debut in 1993 with two guest-starring roles in the children's television shows "Bay City" and "Paradise Beach". At 18, with her mother's help, she published two teen novels, "Bewitched" and "Seduced by Fame". In a 2005 interview with "Sunday Mirror", she said that had she not been successful as an actress, she would probably have been a full-time writer.


title: Isla Fisher

text: Between 1994 and 1997, Fisher played Shannon Reed, a young, unconfident bisexual woman who develops anorexia, on the Australian soap opera "Home and Away". In a 1996 interview with "The Sun-Herald", she spoke of her success and experiences on the show: "I would be stupid to let it go to my head because it could all end tomorrow and I would just fade back into obscurity [...] I like working on "Home and Away" but it's a heavy workload so I get stressed out a lot. We work about 15 hours a day, including the time it takes to learn lines. I know a lot of people work those sort of hours but I think we really feel it because most of us are young and fairly inexperienced [...] But I am very grateful because it is good experience. It's like an apprenticeship, but we do it in front of 20 million people so all our mistakes are up for the world to see." For her performance in the series, Fisher received nominations for Most Popular New Talent at the 1995 Logie Awards, and for Most Popular Actress at the 1997 ceremony.


title: Isla Fisher

text: After leaving the soap, Fisher enrolled at L'École Internationale de Théâtre Jacques Lecoq, a theatre and arts training school in Paris, and went on to appear in pantomime in the United Kingdom. She also toured with Darren Day in the musical "Summer Holiday;" appeared in the London theatre production of "Così," and played an ill-fated member of an elite group of international students in the German slasher film "Swimming Pool" (2001).


title: Isla Fisher

text: Fisher transitioned to Hollywood in 2002, with the part of the love interest of a cowardly slacker Shaggy Rogers in the live-action film "Scooby-Doo". Although "Scooby-Doo" received negative reviews, the film was a commercial success, grossing US$275.7 million worldwide. On that early stage in her career, Fisher remarked: "I only came out on the back of [the movie] — for the premiere of "Scooby Doo". And then, I ended up getting representation and ended up getting a job, almost straight away. So, I was fortunate, in that I didn't have to come out to L.A. and join a queue of however many people, and try to get work. I came in on the back of what was deemed as a big studio movie that had had extraordinary success". She subsequently played supporting roles in the independent film "Dallas 362" (2003) and the Australian comedy "The Wannabes" (also 2003). In his review for the latter, David Rooney of "Variety" felt that Fisher "adds easy charm and a thinly developed hint of romantic interest", in what he summed as an "uneven but endearing farce about breaking into showbiz". In the comedy "I Heart Huckabees" (2004), directed by David O. Russell, she played what was described as a "punchy little part", by newspaper "The Age".


title: Isla Fisher

text: Fisher's breakthrough came with the comedy "Wedding Crashers" (2005), opposite Vince Vaughn and Owen Wilson, taking on the role of the seemingly sexually aggressive and precocious younger daughter of a politician falling in love with an irresponsible wedding crasher. On her part in the film, she remarked: "It was an interesting character to play, because she was so crazy and lacking in any kind of social etiquette. She doesn't care what anyone thinks." For one particular scene, involving sexual content, she used a body double. "I negotiated that from the beginning, trying to analyse why. I find pornographic violence, just gratuitous and unnecessary than nudity, because there's nothing more peaceful and beautiful". The film was favourably received by critics and made US$285.1 million worldwide. "Empire" magazine found Fisher to be an "unexpected, scene-stealing joy", and her performance earned her the Breakthrough Performance Award at the MTV Movie Awards and two Teen Choice Awards nominations.


title: Isla Fisher

text: Fisher appeared as a Manhattan party host in the independent drama "London" (2005), opposite Jessica Biel, Chris Evans and Jason Statham. She next starred in the romantic comedy "Wedding Daze" (2006), with Jason Biggs, playing a dissatisfied waitress who spontaneously gets engaged to a grieving young man. While "Wedding Daze" opened in second place on its UK opening weekend, the film received mediocre reviews from critics. Nevertheless, "Reel Film Reviews" found the film to be an "irreverent, sporadically hilarious romantic comedy that boasts fantastic performances from stars Jason Biggs and Isla Fisher". In the thriller "The Lookout" (2007), opposite Joseph Gordon-Levitt and Matthew Goode, Fisher played a woman used by a gang leader to seduce a man with lasting mental impairments. Describing on how she took her character, she said: "[I]t was one of those situations where I read the script and thought, 'This is the take. I don't want to play the cliché femme fatale. I don't want to come in and be the woman with the sexual appetite, who wants to take down this man. I want to come in and make her this big beating heart, and innocent —a woman who has no identity, who knows the man she's with, who doesn't have an agenda'. Because every character in the script has an agenda. I thought how interesting if [my character] doesn't have one if she's a victim of her own kindness. So, that was my starting point". While "The Lookout" received a limited release, the film was favourably received. The comedy "Hot Rod" (also 2007), with Andy Samberg, saw Fisher star as the college-graduate neighbour on whom an amateur stuntman has a crush.


title: Isla Fisher

text: Fisher played a copy girl who becomes romantically involved with an ambitious political consultant in the romantic comedy "Definitely, Maybe" (2008), with Ryan Reynolds, Elizabeth Banks, Rachel Weisz and Abigail Breslin. Reviewers felt the film was a "refreshing entry into the romantic comedy genre", and "The New Yorker" wrote that the "interest lies" in the female characters, concluding: "Isla Fisher, short, with thick auburn hair, is a changeable free spirit who keeps [the male lead]—and maybe herself—off balance". Budgeted at US$7 million, "Definitely, Maybe" was a commercial success, grossing US$55.4 million worldwide. Fisher also voiced a professor in a city of microscopic creatures in the computer-animated comedy hit "Horton Hears a Who!" (2008), featuring Jim Carrey, Steve Carell, Will Arnett, among others.


title: Isla Fisher

text: Fisher obtained her first leading film role in the comedy "Confessions of a Shopaholic" (2009), where she played a college graduate who works as a financial journalist in New York City to support her shopping addiction. She felt "apprehensive" as she took on her first star vehicle, stating: "I was gobsmacked that anyone would give me my own movie. I am eternally bewildered. Every time I see [producer] Jerry Bruckheimer, I want to shake him and say: 'Are you mad? Why would you put me on a poster?'". Upon its release, the film received lukewarm reviews from critics; while "Time Out" described her as "silly and adorable", "The Christian Science Monitor" remarked: "Isla Fisher is such a bundle of comic energy that watching her spin her wheels in the aggressively unfunny "Confessions of a Shopaholic" counts as cruel and unusual punishment —for her as well as for us". Despite the critical response, the film was a commercial success; it opened with US$15 million on its North America opening weekend and went on to gross US$108.3 million worldwide. Fisher received her third Teen Choice Award nomination.


title: Isla Fisher

text: In the British black comedy "Burke and Hare" (2010), loosely based on the Burke and Hare murders, Fisher starred opposite Simon Pegg and Andy Serkis as a young former prostitute and the love interest of one of the titular characters. The film found a limited audience in theatres, and "Variety" wrote that "Pegg and Fisher, just about holding up their end of the bargain by delivering the film's portion of sweet romance, are hardly given anything funny to say", as part of an overall mixed reception. Fisher voiced a hot-tempered but good-hearted desert iguana befriending an eccentric chameleon in the 3D animated Western action comedy "Rango" (2011), featuring Johnny Depp, Abigail Breslin and Bill Nighy. The film received positive reviews and made US$245.7 million worldwide. For her role, Fisher won the Alliance of Women Film Journalists Award for Best Animated Female.


title: Isla Fisher

text: Fisher starred in the comedy "Bachelorette" (2012), opposite Kirsten Dunst, Lizzy Caplan and Rebel Wilson, portraying a ditzy party girl and one-third of a trio of troubled women who reunite for the wedding of a friend who was ridiculed in high school. In its review for the film, "Daily Telegraph" found Fisher to be "brilliantly slow as a hot mess whose main ambition is to get coked out of her skull". Budgeted at US$3 million, "Bachelorette" was a commercial success; it grossed US$11.9 million in theaters worldwide and more than US$8 million on VOD. In another voice-over role, Fisher voiced the Tooth Fairy in what she summed up as an "animated "Avengers"", the film "Rise of the Guardians" (also 2012), which earned her an Alliance of Women Film Journalists Award nomination for Best Animated Female.


title: Isla Fisher

text: Fisher found mainstream recognition in 2013, with roles in two highly successful films —"The Great Gatsby" and "Now You See Me". "The Great Gatsby", an adaptation of F. Scott Fitzgerald's 1925 novel, directed by Baz Luhrmann and opposite Leonardo DiCaprio, Carey Mulligan and Tobey Maguire, saw her portray an ambitious social climber and the mistress of an upper-class socialite. Fisher described as "surreal" the experience to work for Luhrmann. "He's my dream director. I've only ever had a short list of people I've wanted to work with, and he was at the top of it. I honestly couldn't stop smiling the whole time". While reviewers described her role as brief, the film made US$353.6 million worldwide. Fisher garnered nominations for the Best Supporting Actress award from the AACTA Awards, the Australian Film Critics Association and the Film Critics Circle of Australia Awards. Fisher took on a larger role as an escapist and stage magician in the heist thriller "Now You See Me", with Jesse Eisenberg, Mark Ruffalo, Woody Harrelson, Mélanie Laurent and Morgan Freeman. "The Hollywood Reporter" felt that Fisher's portrayal was "loaded with "chutzpah"", and "IndieWire" remarked in its review for the film: "[W]hile Fisher and Laurent bring their charm, they still don't quite flesh out underwritten parts". Like "The Great Gatsby", "Now You See Me" grossed more than US$350 million globally.


title: Isla Fisher

text: Also in 2013, Fisher obtained the nine-episode role of an actress in the fourth season of "Arrested Development", which was released on Netflix, and appeared opposite Jennifer Aniston, Tim Robbins, and Will Forte in "Life of Crime", a film adaptation of Elmore Leonard's 1978 novel "The Switch", as the mistress of a wealthy man who refuses to pay the ransom for his kidnapped wife. The film received a limited theatrical release and favorable reviews from critics. Fisher, along with the cast of "Arrested Development", received a Screen Actors Guild Award nomination for Outstanding Performance by an Ensemble in a Comedy Series, and describing her work on the series as a career highlight, she said: "I've been really fortunate in my career to work with a lot of great people and get a lot of great gigs, but my favourite phone call ever was the "Arrested Development" one from my agent [...] It was very exciting".


title: Isla Fisher

text: In "Visions" (2015), an independent horror film, Fisher starred as a pregnant woman who begins to experience supernatural manifestations after moving to a vineyard with her husband. Distributed for a limited release in most international markets, "Visions" was released for VOD in North America, and in its review for the film, Spanish newspaper "Reforma" wrote: "Predictable and boring, even Isla Fisher, who is usually pretty good, delivers a very boring performance". 2016 saw Fisher star in two action comedy films —"Grimsby" and "Keeping Up with the Joneses". She collaborated for the first time with husband Sacha Baron Cohen in the British film "Grimsby", playing the handler of the best MI6 agent, and in "Keeping Up with the Joneses", she starred as one half of a suburban couple who begin to suspect their new neighbors are secret agents. Both films were budgeted at over US$35 million, but only made less than US$30 million at the box office.


title: Isla Fisher

text: Based on Austin Wright's novel "Tony and Susan", Tom Ford's neo-noir thriller "Nocturnal Animals" (2016) featured Fisher as the blighted wife of a motorist inside a violent novel written by a recently divorced man. The film was the winner of the Grand Jury Prize at the 73rd Venice International Film Festival and was an arthouse success. Her third book and first children's novel, "Marge in Charge", revolving around a mischievous babysitter with rainbow hair who tends to bend the rules, was published in 2016. The book was met with a positive reception; "Publishers Weekly" noted that "spontaneity and mayhem" reign in the work, while "The Daily Express" found "the comic tale of [the] anarchic babysitter" to be "perfect for reading aloud". Fisher subsequently authored three follow-ups: "Marge and the Pirate Baby", in 2017, "Marge and the Great Train Rescue", also in 2017, and "Marge in Charge and the Stolen Treasure", in 2018. In 2019, she guest starred in an episode of the tenth season of HBO's "Curb Your Enthusiasm". In 2020, Fisher starred in the Walt Disney Pictures film "Godmothered", which was released on Disney+ on 4 December of that year.


title: Isla Fisher

text: Fisher first met English comedian and actor Sacha Baron Cohen in 2001 at a party in Sydney. They became engaged in 2004 and were married on 15 March 2010 in a Jewish ceremony in Paris, France. The couple have three children, born in 2007, 2010, and 2015. The family once resided in the United States, and London.


title: Isla Fisher

text: Before marrying Baron Cohen, Fisher converted to Judaism (her husband's faith), saying, "I will definitely have a Jewish wedding just to be with Sacha. I would do anything—move into any religion—to be united in marriage with him. We have a future together and religion comes second to love as far as we are concerned." She completed her conversion in early 2007, after three years of study. She took the Hebrew name Ayala (), the Hebrew word for a female deer, and has described herself as keeping the Jewish Sabbath.


title: Isla Fisher

text: In 2014 and 2015, Fisher donated her signed shoes for Small Steps Project Celebrity Shoe Auction. In December 2015, Fisher and her husband Baron Cohen donated £335,000 (US$500,000) to Save the Children as part of a programme to vaccinate children in Northern Syria against measles, and the same amount to the International Rescue Committee also aimed at helping Syrian refugees.


title: Telugu language

text: Telugu (; , ) is a Dravidian language spoken by Telugu people predominantly living in the Indian states of Andhra Pradesh and Telangana, where it is also the official language. It is the most widely spoken member of the Dravidian language family and one of the twenty-two scheduled languages of the Republic of India. It is one of the few languages that has primary official status in more than one Indian state, alongside Hindi and Bengali. Telugu is one of six languages designated as a classical language (of India) by the Government of India.


title: Telugu language

text: Telugu is also a linguistic minority in the states of Karnataka, Tamil Nadu, Maharashtra, Gujarat, Chhattisgarh, Orissa, West Bengal, and the union territories of Puducherry and Andaman and Nicobar Islands. It is also spoken by members of the Telugu diaspora spread across countries like United States, Australia, United Kingdom, Canada, New Zealand in the Anglosphere; Myanmar, Malaysia, South Africa, Mauritius; and the Arabian Gulf countries of UAE, Bahrain, Saudi Arabia etc.


title: Telugu language

text: With nearly 81 million native speakers as per the 2011 census, Telugu is the fourth most spoken language in India and 15th in the world in the Ethnologue list of languages by number of native speakers. It is also the fastest-growing language in the United States, where there is a large Telugu-speaking community. It is also a protected language in South Africa and is offered as an optional third language in schools in the KwaZulu-Natal province. Roughly 10,000 pre-colonial inscriptions exist in the Telugu language.


title: Telugu language

text: Speakers of Telugu refer to it as simply "Telugu" or "Telugoo". Older forms of the name include "Teluṅgu" and "Tenuṅgu". "Tenugu" is derived from the Proto-Dravidian word "*ten" ("south") to mean "the people who lived in the south/southern direction" (relative to Sanskrit and Prakrit-speaking peoples). The name "Telugu", then, is a result of an "n" to "l" alternation established in Telugu.


title: Telugu language

text: Another view holds that Atharvana Acharya in the 13th century wrote a grammar of Telugu, calling it the "Trilinga Śabdānusāsana (or Trilinga Grammar)". Appa Kavi in the 17th century explicitly wrote that "Telugu" was derived from "Trilinga". Scholar Charles P. Brown made a comment that it was a "strange notion" since the predecessors of Appa Kavi had no knowledge of such a derivation.


title: Telugu language

text: George Abraham Grierson and other linguists doubt this derivation, holding rather that "Telugu" was the older term and "Trilinga" must be the later Sanskritisation of it. If so the derivation itself must have been quite ancient because "Triglyphum", "Trilingum" and "Modogalingam" are attested in ancient Greek sources, the last of which can be interpreted as a Telugu rendition of ""Trilinga"".


title: Telugu language

text: According to linguist Bhadriraju Krishnamurti, Telugu, as a Dravidian language, descends from Proto-Dravidian, a proto-language. Linguistic reconstruction suggests that Proto-Dravidian was spoken around the third millennium BCE. According to the Russian linguist Mikhail S. Andronov, Telugu split from the Proto-Dravidian language between 1500 and 1000 BCE.


title: Telugu language

text: Prakrit Inscriptions with some Telugu words dating back to between 400 BCE and 100 BCE have been discovered in Bhattiprolu in the Guntur district of Andhra Pradesh. The English translation of an inscription reads, "gift of the slab by venerable Midikilayakha".


title: Telugu language

text: "The Bhattiprolu stone Buddhist casket in proto Telugu belongs to BCE 300, the Erragudi Asokan Rock Edict in Proto Telugu belongs to 257 BCE (DC Sarkar’s Ashokan Studies, Calcutta 1979 pages 7–8), the Ghantasala Brahmin inscription and the pillar inscription of Vijaya Satakarni, Vijayapuri, and Nagarjuna Konda belong to First Century CE. Further, Tummalagudem inscription of Vishnukundinas belongs to 5th Century CE. (Epigraphia Andhrika, Vol.ii pages 9 to 14.)"


title: Telugu language

text: One of the first words in the Telugu language, "Nagabu", was found in a Sanskrit inscription of the 1st century BCE at Amaravathi (not to be confused with the newly planned city of Amaravati). Telugu words were also found in the Dharmasila inscription of Emperor Ashoka. A number of Telugu words were found in the Sanskrit and Prakrit inscriptions of the Satavahana dynastys, Vishnukundina dynasty, and Andhra Ikshvaku.


title: Telugu language

text: According to Telugu lore, its grammar has a prehistoric past. The Sage Kanva was said to be the language's first grammarian. A. Rajeswara Sarma discussed the historicity and content of Kanva's grammar. He cited twenty grammatical aphorisms ascribed to Kanva, and concluded that Kanva wrote an ancient Telugu Grammar which was lost.


title: Telugu language

text: The coin legends of the Satavahanas, in all areas and all periods, used a Prakrit dialect without exception. Some reverse coin legends are in Tamil, and Telugu languages.


title: Telugu language

text: The period from 4th century CE to 1022 CE corresponds to the second phase of Telugu history, after the Andhra Ikshvaku period. This is evidenced by the first inscription that is entirely in Telugu, dated 575 CE, which was found in the Rayalaseema region and is attributed to the Renati Cholas, who broke with the prevailing custom of using Sanskrit and began writing royal proclamations in the local language. During the next fifty years, Telugu inscriptions appeared in Anantapuram and other neighbouring regions. The Madras Museum plates of Balliya-Choda dated to the mid-ninth century CE are the earliest copper plate grants in the Telugu language.


title: Telugu language

text: Certain exploration and excavation missions conducted by the Archaeological Department in and around the Keesaragutta temple have brought to light, a number of brick temples, cells and other structures encompassed by brick prakaram along with coins, beads, stucco figures, garbhapatra, pottery, and Brahmi label inscriptions datable to 4th and 5th centuries CE. On top of one of the rock-cut caves, an early Telugu label inscription reading as 'Thulachuvanru' can be noticed. On the basis of palaeography, the inscription is dated around the 4th to 5th centuries CE.


title: Telugu language

text: Telugu was more influenced by Sanskrit and Prakrit during this period, which corresponded to the advent of Telugu literature. Telugu literature was initially found in inscriptions and poetry in the courts of the rulers, and later in written works such as Nannayya's "Mahabharatam" (1022 CE). During the time of Nannayya, the literary language diverged from the popular language. It was also a period of phonetic changes in the spoken language.


title: Telugu language

text: The third phase is marked by further stylization and sophistication of the literary languages. During this period the split of the Telugu from Kannada alphabets took place. Tikkana wrote his works in this script.


title: Telugu language

text: The Vijayanagara Empire gained dominance from 1336 to the late 17th century, reaching its peak during the rule of Krishnadevaraya in the 16th century, when Telugu literature experienced what is considered its Golden Age.


title: Telugu language

text: A distinct dialect developed in present-day Telangana region, due to Persian/Arabic influence: the Delhi Sultanate of the Tughlaq dynasty was established earlier in the northern Deccan Plateau during the 14th century. In the latter half of the 17th century, the Mughal Empire extended further south, culminating in the establishment of the Hyderabad State by the dynasty of the Nizam of Hyderabad in 1724. This heralded an era of Persian influence on the Telugu language, especially Hyderabad State. The effect is also evident in the prose of the early 19th century, as in the "kaifiyats".


title: Telugu language

text: In the princely Hyderabad State, the Andhra Mahasabha was started in 1921 with the main intention of promoting Telugu language, literature, its books and historical research led by Madapati Hanumantha Rao (the founder of the Andhra Mahasabha), Komarraju Venkata Lakshmana Rao (Founder of Library Movement in Hyderabad State), Suravaram Pratapareddy and others.


title: Telugu language

text: The 16th-century Venetian explorer Niccolò de' Conti, who visited the Vijayanagara Empire, found that the words in the Telugu language end with vowels, just like those in Italian, and hence referred to it as "The Italian of the East"; a saying that has been widely repeated.


title: Telugu language

text: In the late 19th and the early 20th centuries, the influence of the English language was seen, and modern communication/printing press arose as an effect of British rule, especially in the areas that were part of the Madras Presidency. Literature from this time had a mix of classical and modern traditions and included works by such scholars as Gidugu Venkata Ramamoorty, Kandukuri Veeresalingam, Gurazada Apparao, Gidugu Sitapati and Panuganti Lakshminarasimha Rao.


title: Telugu language

text: Since the 1930s, what was considered an "elite" literary form of the Telugu language has now spread to the common people with the introduction of mass media like movies, television, radio and newspapers. This form of the language is also taught in schools and colleges as a standard.


title: Telugu language

text: Telugu is natively spoken in the states of Andhra Pradesh and Telangana and Yanam district of Puducherry. Telugu speakers are also found in the neighboring states of Tamil Nadu, Karnataka, Maharashtra, Odisha, Chhattisgarh, some parts of Jharkhand and the Kharagpur region of West Bengal in India. Many Telugu immigrants are also found in the states of Gujarat, Goa, Bihar, Kashmir, Uttar Pradesh, Punjab, Haryana and Rajasthan. At 7.2% of the population, Telugu is the fourth-most-spoken language in the Indian subcontinent after Hindi, Bengali and Marathi. In Karnataka, 7.0% of the population speak Telugu, and 5.6% in Tamil Nadu.


title: Telugu language

text: There are more than 1,000,000 Telugu Americans in the United States, with the highest concentration in Central New Jersey, also known as "Little Andhra". As of 2018, Telugu is the fastest-growing language in the United States, with the number of Telugu speakers in the United States increasing by 86% between 2010 and 2017. Minority Telugus are also found in Australia, New Zealand, Bahrain, Canada, Fiji, Malaysia, Sri Lanka, Singapore, Mauritius, Myanmar, Europe (Italy, the United Kingdom), South Africa, Trinidad and Tobago, and the United Arab Emirates.


title: Telugu language

text: Telugu is the official language of the Indian states of Andhra Pradesh and Telangana. It is one of the 22 languages under schedule 8 of the constitution of India. It is one of the official languages of the union territories of Puducherry. Telugu is a protected language in South Africa. According to the Constitution of South Africa, the Pan South African Language Board must promote and ensure respect for Telugu along with other languages. The Government of South Africa announced that Telugu will be re-included as the official subject in the South African schools after it was removed from the curriculum in state schools.


title: Telugu language

text: In addition, with the creation in October 2004 of a legal status for classical languages by the Government of India and following a political campaign supported by several Tamil associations, on 8 August 2008, Telugu was also given the classical language status due to several campaigns.


title: Telugu language

text: According to the famous Japanese historian Noboru Karashima who served as the president of the Epigraphical Society of India in 1985, there are approximately 10,000 inscriptions which exist in the Telugu language as of the year 1996 making it one of the most densely inscribed languages. Telugu inscriptions are found in all the districts of Andhra Pradesh and Telangana. They are also found in Karnataka, Tamil Nadu, Orissa, and Chhattisgarh. According to recent estimates by ASI (Archaeological Survey of India) the number of inscriptions in the Telugu language goes up to 14,000. Adilabad, Nizamabad, Hyderabad, Anantapur, and Chittoor produced no more than a handful of Telugu inscriptions in the Kakatiya era between 1175 CE and 1324 CE.


title: Telugu language

text: Andhra is characterised as having its own mother tongue, and its territory has been equated with the extent of the Telugu language. The equivalence between the Telugu linguistic sphere and the geographical boundaries of Andhra is also brought out in an eleventh-century description of Andhra boundaries. Andhra, according to this text, was bounded in north by Mahendra mountain in the modern Ganjam district in Odisha and to the south by Srikalahasteeswara temple in Chittoor district. However, Andhra extended westwards as far as Srisailam in Kurnool district, about halfway across the modern state. According to other sources in the early sixteenth century, the northern boundary is Simhachalam and the southern limit is Tirumala of the Telugu Nation.


title: Telugu language

text: Telugu place names are present all around Andhra Pradesh and Telangana. Common suffixes are -"ooru, -pudi, -pedu, -peta, -patnam, -wada," -"gallu, -cherla, -seema, -gudem, -palle, -palem" and -"palli". Examples that use this nomenclature are Nellore, Tadepalligudem, Guntur, Chintalapudi, Yerpedu, Narasaraopeta, Sattenapalle, Visakapatnam, Vizianagaram, Ananthagiri, Vijayawada, Vuyyuru, Macherla, Poranki, Ramagundam, Warangal, Mancherial, Peddapalli, Siddipet, Banswada, and Miryalaguda.


title: Telugu language

text: Colloquially, Telangana, Rayalaseema and Coastal Andhra dialects are considered the three Telugu dialects and regions.


title: Telugu language

text: Waddar, Chenchu, and Manna-Dora are all closely related to Telugu. Other dialects of Telugu are Berad, Dasari, Dommara, Golari, Kamathi, Komtao, Konda-Reddi, Salewari, Vadaga, Srikakula, Vishakhapatnam, East Godavari, Rayalaseema, Nellore, Guntur, Vadari and Yanadi.


title: Telugu language

text: The Roman transliteration used for transcribing the Telugu script is the National Library at Kolkata romanisation.


title: Telugu language

text: Telugu words generally end in vowels. In Old Telugu, this was absolute; in the modern language "m, n, y, w" may end a word. Atypically for a Dravidian language, voiced consonants were distinctive even in the oldest recorded form of the language. Sanskrit loans have introduced aspirated and murmured consonants as well.


title: Telugu language

text: Telugu does not have contrastive stress, and speakers vary on where they perceive stress. Most place it on the penultimate or final syllable, depending on word and vowel length.


title: Telugu language

text: The table below lists the consonantal phonemes of Telugu, along with the symbols used in the transliteration of the Telugu script used here.


title: Telugu language

text: Most consonants contrast in length in word-medial position, meaning that there are long (geminated) and short phonetic renderings of the sounds. A few examples of words that contrast by length of word-medial consonants:


title: Telugu language

text: All retroflex consonants occur in intervocalic position and when adjacent to a retroflex consonant, for instance. /ʋɐːɳiː/ "vāṇī" 'tippet', /kɐʈɳɐm/ "kaṭṇam" 'dowry', /pɐɳɖu/ "paṇḍu" 'fruit'; /kɐɭɐ/ "kaḷa" 'art', /bɐːɭʈi/ "bāḷṭi" 'bucket' (from Portuguese "balde" 'bucket'). With the exception of /ɳ/ and /ɭ/, all occur word-initial in a few words, such as /ʈɐkːu/ "ṭakku" 'pretence', /ʈiːʋi/ "ṭhīvi" 'grandeur', /ɖipːɐ/ "ḍippā" 'half of a spherical object', /ɖoːkɐː/ "ḍhōkā" 'danger', and /ʂoːku/ "ṣōku" 'fashionable appearance'.


title: Telugu language

text: The approximant /j/ occurs in word-initial position only in borrowed words, such as. /jɐnɡu/ "yangu", from English 'young', /jɐʃɐsːu/ "yaśassu" from Sanskrit "yaśas" /jɑʃɑs/ 'fame'.


title: Telugu language

text: Vowels in Telugu contrast in length; there are short and long versions of all vowels except for /æ/, which only occurs as long. Long vowels can occur in any position within the word, but native Telugu words do not end in a long vowel. Short vowels occur in all positions of a word, with the exception of /o/, which does not occur word-finally. The vowels of Telugu are illustrated below, along with the Telugu script and romanization.


title: Telugu language

text: In most dialects, the vowel only occurs in loan words. In the Guntur dialect, is a frequent allophone of in certain verbs in the past tense.


title: Telugu language

text: Roots alter according to whether the first vowel is tense or lax. Also, if the second vowel is open (i.e., or ), then the first vowel is more open and centralized (e.g., 'goat', as opposed to 'nail'). Telugu words also have vowels in inflectional suffixes that are harmonized with the vowels of the preceding syllable.


title: Telugu language

text: The traditional study of Telugu Grammar is known as "vyākaraṇam" (వ్యాకరణం). The first treatise on Telugu grammar, the "Āndhra Śabda Cinṭāmaṇi", was written in Sanskrit by Nannayya, considered the first Telugu poet and translator, in the 12th century CE. This grammar followed patterns described in grammatical treatises such as "Aṣṭādhyāyī" and "Vālmīkivyākaranam", but unlike Pāṇini, Nannayya divided his work into five chapters, covering "samjnā", "sandhi", "ajanta", "halanta" and "kriya". Every Telugu grammatical rule is derived from Pāṇinian concepts.


title: Telugu language

text: In the 19th century, Chinnaya Suri wrote a condensed work on Telugu grammar called "Bāla Vyākaraṇam", borrowing concepts and ideas from Nannayya's grammar.


title: Telugu language

text: Relations between participants in an event are coded in Telugu words through suffixation; there are no prefixes or infixes in the language. There are six word classes in Telugu: nominals (proper nouns, pronouns), verbs (actions or events), modifiers (adjectives, quantifiers, numerals), adverbs (modify the way in which actions or events unfold), and clitics.


title: Telugu language

text: Telugu nouns are inflected for number (singular, plural), noun class (three classes traditionally termed "masculine, feminine", and "neuter") and case (nominative, accusative, genitive, dative, vocative, instrumental, and locative).


title: Telugu language

text: The example above can also be interpreted as 'Ambedkar will go to school', depending on the context, but it does not affect the SOV order.


title: Telugu language

text: As with other Dravidian languages, gender in Telugu follows a semantic system, in the sense that it is mostly the meaning of the word which defines the noun class to which it belongs. There are three noun classes: masculine (human males, "he-"gender), feminine (human females, "she"-gender), and neuter (all non-humans, "it-gender"). The gender of most nouns is encoded through agreement/indexation in pronominal suffixes rather than overtly on the noun.


title: Telugu language

text: In terms of the verbal agreement system, genders in marking on the Telugu verb only occur in the third person.


title: Telugu language

text: The Telugu gender system is different from Dravidian languages like Tamil given that the Telugu feminine shares indexation morphemes with the masculine plural ("-ru") and with the neuter singular ("-di"). What characterizes the three-gender system is then the individual behavior of the singular-plural "pairs" of suffixes.


title: Telugu language

text: Telugu pronouns include personal pronouns (the persons speaking, the persons spoken to, or the persons or things spoken about); indefinite pronouns; relative pronouns (connecting parts of sentences); and reciprocal or reflexive pronouns (in which the object of a verb is acted on by the verb's subject).


title: Telugu language

text: There is a wide variety of demonstrative pronouns in Telugu, whose forms depend on both proximity to the speaker and the level of formality. The formal demonstratives may also be used as formal personal pronoun, that is, the polite forms for "this woman" or "this man" and "that woman" or "that man" can also simply mean "she" and "he" in more formal contexts"."


title: Telugu language

text: In the singular, there are four levels of formality when speaking about males and females, although the most formal/polite form is the same for both human genders. In both singular and plural, Telugu distinguishes two levels of distance from speaker (like in English), basically "this and that", and "these and those".


title: Telugu language

text: In the plural, there are no distinctions between formality levels, but once again masculine and feminine forms are the same, while the neuter demonstratives are different.


title: Telugu language

text: The nominative case ("karta"), the object of a verb ("karma"), and the verb are somewhat in a sequence in Telugu sentence construction. ""Vibhakti"" (case of a noun) and ""pratyāyamulu"" (an affix to roots and words forming derivatives and inflections) depict the ancient nature and progression of the language. The ""Vibhaktis"" of Telugu language " డు [ɖu], ము [mu], వు [vu], లు [lu]", etc., are different from those in Sanskrit and have been in use for a long time.


title: Telugu language

text: The lexicon of Telugu shows a pervasive influence of Sanskrit that goes back at least 1000 years; there is also evidence suggesting an earlier influence. It's estimated that 80% of Telugu's lexicon is derived from Sanskrit. Indologist David Shulman states that "Telugu must have swallowed Sanskrit whole, as it were, even before Nannaya." He further notes that "every Sanskrit word is potentially a Telugu word" and that Telugu speech and literary texts are Sanskritized to an "enormous degree". During the period 1000–1100 CE, Nannaya's re-writing of the "Mahābhārata" in Telugu (మహాభారతము) established the liberal borrowing of Sanskrit words. Telugu absorbed "tatsamas" from Sanskrit.


title: Telugu language

text: The relexification of Dravidian languages by Indo-Iranian languages is not an uncommon occurrence. Likewise is the case of Brahui —a Dravidian language spoken in the Balochistan and upper Sindh regions of Pakistan— with Indo-Iranian (incl. Perso-Arabic) vocabulary accounting for 40% of its lexicon.


title: Telugu language

text: The vocabulary of Telugu, especially in Telangana, has a trove of Persian–Arabic borrowings, which have been modified to fit Telugu phonology. This was due to centuries of Turkic rule in these regions, such as the erstwhile kingdoms of Golkonda and Hyderabad (e.g., కబురు, for Urdu , or జవాబు, for Urdu , ).


title: Telugu language

text: Modern Telugu vocabulary can be said to constitute a diglossia because the formal, standardised version of the language is either lexically Sanskrit or heavily influenced by Sanskrit, as taught in schools, and used by the government and Hindu religious institutions. However, everyday Telugu varies in such features depending upon region.


title: Telugu language

text: The Telugu script is an abugida consisting of 60 symbols — 16 vowels, 3 vowel modifiers, and 41 consonants. Telugu has a complete set of letters that follow a system to express sounds. The script is derived from the Brahmi script like those of many other Indian languages. The Telugu script is written from left to right and consists of sequences of simple and/or complex characters. The script is syllabic in nature—the basic units of writing are syllables. Since the number of possible syllables is very large, syllables are composed of more basic units such as vowels (""acchu"" or ""swaram"") and consonants (""hallu"" or ""vyanjanam""). Consonants in consonant clusters take shapes that are very different from the shapes they take elsewhere. Consonants are presumed pure consonants, that is, without any vowel sound in them. However, it is traditional to write and read consonants with an implied "a" vowel sound. When consonants combine with other vowel signs, the vowel part is indicated orthographically using signs known as vowel ""mātras"". The shapes of vowel ""mātras"" are also very different from the shapes of the corresponding vowels.


title: Telugu language

text: Historically, a sentence used to end with either a single bar। (""pūrna virāmam"") or a double bar॥ (""dīrgha virāmam""); in handwriting, Telugu words were not separated by spaces. However, in modern times, English punctuation (commas, semicolon, etc.) has virtually replaced the old method of punctuation.


title: Telugu language

text: Telugu has full-zero (""anusvāra"" or ""sunna"" ) ( ం ), half-zero (""arthanusvāra"" or ""candrabindu"" or ""ara-sunna"" ) (ఁ) and "visarga" ( ః ) to convey various shades of nasal sounds. [la] and [La], [ra] and [Ra] are differentiated.


title: Telugu language

text: Telugu has "ĉ" and "ĵ", which are not represented in Sanskrit. Their pronunciation is similar to the "s" sound in the word treasure (i.e., the postalveolar voiced fricative) and "z" sound in zebra, "i.e.", the alveolar voiced fricative, respectively.


title: Telugu language

text: Telugu has ten digits employed with the Hindu–Arabic numeral system. However, in modern usage, the Arabic numerals have replaced them.


title: Telugu language

text: In the earliest period Telugu literature existed in the form of inscriptions, precisely from 575 CE onward.


title: Telugu language

text: Prabandha Ratnavali (1918) & Pre-Nannayya Chandassu (Raja Raja Narendra Pattabhisekha Sanchika) by Veturi Prabhakara Sastry talk about the existence of Jain Telugu literature during 850-1000 CE. A verse from Telugu Jinendra Puranam by Adikavi Pampa, a couple of verses from Telugu Adi Puranam by Sarvadeva and Kavijanasrayam by Malliya Rechana were all authored by Jain poet's and are the examples for Jain contribution to Telugu Literature.


title: Telugu language

text: Historically, Vemulawada was a Jain knowledge hub and played a significant role in patronizing Jain literature and poets. Excavations in the 1980s around Vemulawada revealed and affirmed the existence of Telugu Jain literature.


title: Telugu language

text: Malliya Rechana is considered to be the first Telugu Author. P.V. Parabrahma Sastry, Nidadavolu Venkata Rao, P.V.P Sastry also pointed out that many Jain works could have been destroyed. Historical rivalry among Hinduism, Jainism and Buddhism is well known.


title: Telugu language

text: This is the period of Kavi Trayam or Trinity of Poets. Nannayya, Tikkana and Yerrapragada (or Errana) are known as the Kavi Trayam.


title: Telugu language

text: Nannaya Bhattarakudu's (Telugu: నన్నయ) Andhra Mahabharatam, who lived around the 11th century, is commonly referred to as the first Telugu literary composition (aadi kaavyam). Although there is evidence of Telugu literature before Nannaya, he is given the epithet Aadi Kavi ("the first poet"). Nannaya Bhattu acknowledged the help extended to him by his friend Narayana Bhattu in his composition in fields like making choices of grammatical forms, metres, form of the book, etc. and compares it to that extended to Arjuna by God Sri Krishna in the Bharata war. Scholar and poet K. Ayyappa Paniker states that both Nannaya Bhattu and Narayana Bhattu were Kannada origin scholars. Nannaya was the first to establish a formal grammar of written Telugu. This grammar followed the patterns which existed in grammatical treatises like Aṣṭādhyāyī and Vālmīkivyākaranam but unlike Pāṇini, Nannayya divided his work into five chapters, covering samjnā, sandhi, ajanta, halanta and kriya.[14] Nannaya completed the first two chapters and a part of the third chapter of the Mahabharata epic, which is rendered in the Champu style.


title: Telugu language

text: Tikkana Somayaji (1205–1288 CE): Nannaya's Andhra Mahabharatam was almost completed by Tikanna Somayaji (Telugu: తిక్కన సోమయాజి) (1205–1288) who wrote chapters 4 to 18.


title: Telugu language

text: Yerrapragada: (Telugu: ఎర్రాప్రగడ) who lived in the 14th century, finished the epic by completing the third chapter. He mimics Nannaya's style in the beginning, slowly changes tempo and finishes the chapter in the writing style of Tikkana. These three writers – Nannaya, Tikanna and Yerrapragada – are known as the Kavitraya ("three great poets") of Telugu. Other such translations like Marana's Markandeya Puranam, Ketana's "Dasakumara Charita", Yerrapragada's Harivamsam followed. Many scientific works, like Ganitasarasangrahamu by Pavuluri Mallana and Prakirnaganitamu by Eluganti Peddana, were written in the 12th century.


title: Telugu language

text: Sumati Shatakam, which is a neeti ("moral"), is one of the most famous Telugu Shatakams. Shatakam is composed of more than a 100 padyalu (poems). According to many literary critics Sumati Shatakam was composed by Baddena Bhupaludu (Telugu: బద్దెన భూపాల) (CE 1220–1280). He was also known as Bhadra Bhupala. He was a Chola prince and a vassal under the Kakatiya empress Rani Rudrama Devi, and a pupil of Tikkana. If we assume that the Sumati Shatakam was indeed written by Baddena, it would rank as one of the earliest Shatakams in Telugu along with the Vrushadhipa Satakam of Palkuriki Somanatha and the Sarveswara Satakam of Yathavakkula Annamayya. The Sumatee Shatakam is also one of the earliest Telugu works to be translated into a European language, as C. P. Brown rendered it in English in the 1840s.


title: Telugu language

text: Palkuriki Somanatha: Important among his Telugu language writings are the Basava Purana, Panditaradhya charitra, Malamadevipuranamu and Somanatha Stava–in dwipada metre ("couplets"); Anubhavasara, Chennamallu Sisamalu, Vrishadhipa Shataka and Cheturvedasara–in verses; Basavodharana in verses and ragale metre (rhymed couplets in blank verse); and the Basavaragada.


title: Telugu language

text: Gona Budda Reddy: His Ranganatha Ramayanam was a pioneering work in the Telugu language on the theme of the Ramayana epic. Most scholars believe he wrote it between 1300 and 1310 A.D., possibly with help from his family. The work has become part of cultural life in Andhra Pradesh and is used in puppet shows.


title: Telugu language

text: Paravastu Chinnayya Soori (1807–1861) is a well-known Telugu writer who dedicated his entire life to the progress and promotion of Telugu language and literature. Sri Chinnayasoori wrote the "Bala Vyakaranam" in a new style after doing extensive research on Telugu grammar. Other well-known writings by Chinnayasoori are "Neethichandrika", "Sootandhra Vyaakaranamu", "Andhra Dhatumoola", and "Neeti Sangrahamu".


title: Telugu language

text: Kandukuri Veeresalingam (1848–1919) is generally considered the father of modern Telugu literature. His novel "Rajasekhara Charitamu" was inspired by the Vicar of Wakefield. His work marked the beginning of a dynamic of socially conscious Telugu literature and its transition to the modern period, which is also part of the wider literary renaissance that took place in Indian culture during this period. Other prominent literary figures from this period are Gurajada Appa Rao, Viswanatha Satyanarayana, Gurram Jashuva, Rayaprolu Subba Rao, Devulapalli Krishnasastri and Srirangam Srinivasa Rao, popularly known as "Mahakavi" Sri Sri. Sri Sri was instrumental in popularising free verse in spoken Telugu ("vaaduka bhasha"), as opposed to the pure form of written Telugu used by several poets in his time. Devulapalli Krishnasastri is often referred to as the Shelley of Telugu literature because of his pioneering works in Telugu Romantic poetry.


title: Telugu language

text: Viswanatha Satyanarayana won India's national literary honour, the Jnanpith Award for his magnum opus "Ramayana Kalpavrukshamu". C. Narayana Reddy won the Jnanpith Award in 1988 for his poetic work, "Viswambara". Ravuri Bharadhwaja won the 3rd Jnanpith Award for Telugu literature in 2013 for "Paakudu Raallu", a graphic account of life behind the screen in film industry. "Kanyasulkam", the first social play in Telugu by Gurajada Appa Rao, was followed by the progressive movement, the free verse movement and the Digambara style of Telugu verse. Other modern Telugu novelists include Unnava Lakshminarayana ("Maalapalli"), Bulusu Venkateswarulu ("Bharatiya Tatva Sastram"), Kodavatiganti Kutumba Rao and Buchi Babu.


title: Telugu language

text: Telugu input, display, and support were initially provided on the Microsoft Windows platform. Subsequently, various browsers, computer applications, operating systems, and user interfaces were localized in Telugu Language for Windows and Linux platforms by vendors and free and open-source software volunteers. Telugu-capable smart phones were also introduced by vendors in 2013.


title: Telugu language

text: On 15 February 2018, Apple devices were experiencing crashes of apps and device shutdowns when two particular characters from the Telugu language (specifically జ్ఞా) was rendered on the display. Reports show that this has affected iOS, MacOS, tvOS and watchOS. On 20 February, Apple announced that the bug was fixed with the iOS 11.2.6 update.


title: Usain Bolt

text: Usain St. Leo Bolt, , (; born 21 August 1986) is a retired Jamaican sprinter, widely considered to be the greatest sprinter of all time. He is the world record holder in the 100 metres, 200 metres, and 4 × 100 metres relay.


title: Usain Bolt

text: An eight-time Olympic gold medallist, Bolt is the only sprinter to win Olympic 100 m and 200 m titles at three consecutive Olympics (2008, 2012, and 2016). He also won two 4 × 100 relay gold medals. He gained worldwide fame for his double sprint victory in world record times at the 2008 Beijing Olympics, which made him the first person to hold both records since fully automatic time became mandatory.


title: Usain Bolt

text: An eleven-time World Champion, he won consecutive World Championship 100 m, 200 m and 4 × 100 metres relay gold medals from 2009 to 2015, with the exception of a 100 m false start in 2011. He is the most successful male athlete of the World Championships. Bolt is the first athlete to win four World Championship titles in the 200 m and is one of the most successful in the 100 m with three titles.


title: Usain Bolt

text: Bolt improved upon his second 100 m world record of 9.69 with 9.58 seconds in 2009 – the biggest improvement since the start of electronic timing. He has twice broken the 200 metres world record, setting 19.30 in 2008 and 19.19 in 2009. He has helped Jamaica to three 4 × 100 metres relay world records, with the current record being 36.84 seconds set in 2012. Bolt's most successful event is the 200 m, with three Olympic and four World titles. The 2008 Olympics was his international debut over 100 m; he had earlier won numerous 200 m medals (including 2007 World Championship silver) and held the world under-20 and world under-18 records for the event until being surpassed by Erriyon Knighton in 2021.


title: Usain Bolt

text: His achievements as a sprinter have earned him the media nickname "Lightning Bolt", and his awards include the IAAF World Athlete of the Year, Track & Field Athlete of the Year, BBC Overseas Sports Personality of the Year (three times), and Laureus World Sportsman of the Year (four times). Bolt was included in "Time" magazine's 100 Most Influential People of 2016. Bolt retired after the 2017 World Championships, when he finished third in his last solo 100 m race, opted out of the 200 m, and pulled up injured in the 4×100 m relay final.


title: Usain Bolt

text: Bolt was born on 21 August 1986 to parents Wellesley and Jennifer Bolt in Sherwood Content, a small town in Jamaica. He has a brother, Sadiki, and a sister, Sherine. His parents ran the local grocery store in the rural area, and Bolt spent his time playing cricket and football in the street with his brother, later saying, "When I was young, I didn't really think about anything other than sports." As a child, Bolt attended Waldensia Primary, where he began showing his sprint potential when he ran in his parish's annual national primary school meet. By the age of twelve, Bolt had become the school's fastest runner over the 100 metres distance. Bolt also developed an affection for European football teams Real Madrid and Manchester United.


title: Usain Bolt

text: Upon his entry to William Knibb Memorial High School, Bolt continued to focus on other sports, but his cricket coach noticed Bolt's speed on the pitch and urged him to try track and field events. Pablo McNeil, a former Olympic sprint athlete, and Dwayne Jarrett coached Bolt, encouraging him to focus his energy on improving his athletic abilities. The school had a history of success in athletics with past students, including sprinter Michael Green. Bolt won his first annual high school championships medal in 2001; he took the silver medal in the 200 metres with a time of 22.04 seconds. McNeil soon became his primary coach, and the two enjoyed a positive partnership, although McNeil was occasionally frustrated by Bolt's lack of dedication to his training and his penchant for practical jokes.


title: Usain Bolt

text: When Bolt was a boy, he attended Sherwood Content Seventh-day Adventist Church in Trelawny, Jamaica, with his mother. His mother did not serve pork to him in accordance with Adventist beliefs.


title: Usain Bolt

text: Representing Jamaica in his first Caribbean regional event, Bolt clocked a personal best time of 48.28 s in the 400 metres in the 2001 CARIFTA Games, winning a silver medal. The 200 m also yielded a silver, as Bolt finished in 21.81 s.


title: Usain Bolt

text: He made his first appearance on the world stage at the 2001 IAAF World Youth Championships in Debrecen, Hungary. Running in the 200 m event, he failed to qualify for the finals, but he still set a new personal best of 21.73 s. Bolt still did not take athletics or himself too seriously, however, and he took his mischievousness to new heights by hiding in the back of a van when he was supposed to be preparing for the 200 m finals at the CARIFTA Trials. He was detained by the police for his practical joke, and there was an outcry from the local community, which blamed coach McNeil for the incident. However, the controversy subsided, and both McNeil and Bolt went to the CARIFTA Games, where Bolt set championship records in the 200 m and 400 m with times of 21.12 s and 47.33 s, respectively. He continued to set records with 20.61 s and 47.12 s finishes at the Central American and Caribbean Junior Championships.


title: Usain Bolt

text: Bolt is one of only nine athletes (along with Valerie Adams, Veronica Campbell-Brown, Jacques Freitag, Yelena Isinbayeva, Jana Pittman, Dani Samuels, David Storl, and Kirani James) to win world championships at the youth, junior, and senior level of an athletic event. Former Prime Minister P. J. Patterson recognised Bolt's talent and arranged for him to move to Kingston, along with Jermaine Gonzales, so he could train with the Jamaica Amateur Athletic Association (JAAA) at the University of Technology, Jamaica.


title: Usain Bolt

text: The 2002 World Junior Championships were held in front of a home crowd in Kingston, Jamaica, and Bolt was given a chance to prove his credentials on a world stage. By the age of 15, he had grown to tall, and he physically stood out among his peers. He won the 200 m in a time of 20.61 s, which was 0.03 s slower than his personal best of 20.58 s, which he set in the 1st round. Bolt's 200 m win made him the youngest world-junior gold medallist ever. The expectation from the home crowd had made him so nervous that he had put his shoes on the wrong feet, although he realized the mistake before the race began. However, it turned out to be a revelatory experience for Bolt, as he vowed never again to let himself be affected by pre-race nerves. As a member of the Jamaican sprint relay team, he also took two silver medals and set national junior records in the 4×100 metres and 4×400 metres relay, running times of 39.15 s and 3:04.06 minutes respectively.


title: Usain Bolt

text: The rush of medals continued as he won four golds at the 2003 CARIFTA Games and was awarded the Austin Sealy Trophy for the most outstanding athlete of the games. He won another gold at the 2003 World Youth Championships. He set a new championship record in the 200 m with a time of 20.40 s, despite a head wind. Michael Johnson, the 200 m world-record holder, took note of Bolt's potential but worried that the young sprinter might be over-pressured, stating, "It's all about what he does three, four, five years down the line". Bolt had also impressed the athletics hierarchy, and he received the IAAF Rising Star Award for 2002.


title: Usain Bolt

text: Bolt competed in his final Jamaican High School Championships in 2003. He broke the 200 m and 400 m records with times of 20.25 s and 45.35 s, respectively. Bolt's runs were a significant improvement upon the previous records, beating the 200 m best by more than half a second and the 400 m record by almost a second. Bolt improved upon the 200 m time three months later, setting the former World youth best at the 2003 Pan American Junior Championships. The 400 m time remains No. 6 on the all-time youth list, surpassed only once since, by future Olympic champion Kirani James.


title: Usain Bolt

text: Bolt turned his main focus to the 200 m and equalled Roy Martin's world junior record of 20.13 s at the Pan-American Junior Championships. This performance attracted interest from the press, and his times in the 200 m and 400 m led to him being touted as a possible successor to Johnson. Indeed, at sixteen years old, Bolt had reached times that Johnson did not register until he was twenty, and Bolt's 200 m time was superior to Maurice Greene's season's best that year.


title: Usain Bolt

text: Bolt was growing more popular in his homeland. Howard Hamilton, who was given the task of Public Defender by the government, urged the JAAA to nurture him and prevent burnout, calling Bolt "the most phenomenal sprinter ever produced by this island". His popularity and the attractions of the capital city were beginning to be a burden to the young sprinter. Bolt was increasingly unfocused on his athletic career and preferred to eat fast food, play basketball, and party in Kingston's club scene. In the absence of a disciplined lifestyle, he became ever-more reliant on his natural ability to beat his competitors on the track.


title: Usain Bolt

text: As the reigning 200 m champion at both the World Youth and World Junior championships, Bolt hoped to take a clean sweep of the world 200 m championships in the Senior World Championships in Paris. He beat all comers at the 200 m in the World Championship trials. Bolt was pragmatic about his chances and noted that, even if he did not make the final, he would consider setting a personal best a success. However, he suffered a bout of conjunctivitis before the event, and it ruined his training schedule. Realising that he would not be in peak condition, the JAAA refused to let him participate in the finals, on the grounds that he was too young and inexperienced. Bolt was dismayed at missing out on the opportunity, but focused on getting himself in shape to gain a place on the Jamaican Olympic team instead. Even though he missed the World Championships, Bolt was awarded the IAAF Rising Star Award for the 2003 season on the strength of his junior record-equalling run.


title: Usain Bolt

text: Under the guidance of new coach Fitz Coleman, Bolt turned professional in 2004, beginning with the CARIFTA Games in Bermuda. He became the first junior sprinter to run the 200 m in under twenty seconds, taking the world junior record outright with a time of 19.93 s. For the second time in the role, he was awarded the Austin Sealy Trophy for the most outstanding athlete of the 2004 CARIFTA Games. A hamstring injury in May ruined Bolt's chances of competing in the 2004 World Junior Championships, but he was still chosen for the Jamaican Olympic squad. Bolt headed to the 2004 Athens Olympics with confidence and a new record on his side. However, he was hampered by a leg injury and was eliminated in the first round of the 200 metres with a disappointing time of 21.05 s. American colleges offered Bolt track scholarships to train in the United States while continuing to represent Jamaica on the international stage, but the teenager from Trelawny refused them all, stating that he was content to stay in his homeland of Jamaica. Bolt instead chose the surroundings of the University of Technology, Jamaica, as his professional training ground, staying with the university's track and weight room that had served him well in his amateur years.


title: Usain Bolt

text: The year 2005 signalled a fresh start for Bolt in the form of a new coach, Glen Mills, and a new attitude toward athletics. Mills recognised Bolt's potential and aimed to cease what he considered an unprofessional approach to the sport. Bolt began training with Mills in preparation for the upcoming athletics season, partnering with more seasoned sprinters such as Kim Collins and Dwain Chambers. The year began well, and in July, he knocked more than a third of a second off the 200 m CAC Championship record with a run of 20.03 s, then registered his 200 m season's best at London's Crystal Palace, running in 19.99 s.


title: Usain Bolt

text: Misfortune awaited Bolt at the next major event, the 2005 World Championships in Helsinki. Bolt felt that both his work ethic and athleticism had much improved since the 2004 Olympics, and he saw the World Championships as a way to live up to expectations, stating, "I really want to make up for what happened in Athens. Hopefully, everything will fall into place". Bolt qualified with runs under 21 s, but he suffered an injury in the final, finishing in last place with a time of 26.27 s. Injuries were preventing him from completing a full professional athletics season, and the eighteen-year-old Bolt still had not proven his mettle in the major world-athletics competitions. However, his appearance made him the youngest ever person to appear in a 200 m world final. Bolt was involved in a car accident in November, and although he suffered only minor facial lacerations, his training schedule was further upset. His manager at the time, Norman Peart, made Bolt's training less intensive, and he had fully recuperated the following week. Bolt had continued to improve his performances, and he reached the world top-5 rankings in 2005 and 2006. Peart and Mills stated their intentions to push Bolt to do longer sprinting distances with the aim of making the 400 m event his primary event by 2007 or 2008. Bolt was less enthusiastic, and demanded that he feel comfortable in his sprinting. He suffered another hamstring injury in March 2006, forcing him to withdraw from the 2006 Commonwealth Games in Melbourne, and he did not return to track events until May. After his recovery, Bolt was given new training exercises to improve flexibility, and the plans to move him up to the 400 m event were put on hold.


title: Usain Bolt

text: The 200 m remained Bolt's primary event when he returned to competition; he bested Justin Gatlin's meet record in Ostrava, Czech Republic. Bolt had aspired to run under twenty seconds to claim a season's best but, despite the fact that bad weather had impaired his run, he was happy to end the meeting with just the victory. However, a sub-20-second finish was soon his, as he set a new personal best of 19.88 s at the 2006 Athletissima Grand Prix in Lausanne, Switzerland, finishing behind Xavier Carter and Tyson Gay to earn a bronze medal. Bolt had focused his athletics aims, stating that 2006 was a year to gain experience. Also, he was more keen on competing over longer distances, setting his sights on running regularly in both 200 m and 400 m events within the next two years.


title: Usain Bolt

text: Bolt claimed his first major world medal two months later at the IAAF World Athletics Final in Stuttgart, Germany. He passed the finishing post with a time of 20.10 s, gaining a bronze medal in the process. The IAAF World Cup in Athens, Greece, yielded Bolt's first senior international silver medal. Wallace Spearmon from the United States won gold with a championship record time of 19.87 s, beating Bolt's respectable time of 19.96 s. Further 200 m honours on both the regional and international stages awaited Bolt in 2007. He yearned to run in the 100 metres but Mills was skeptical, believing that Bolt was better suited for middle distances. The coach cited the runner's difficulty in smoothly starting out of the blocks and poor habits such as looking back at opponents in sprints. Mills told Bolt that he could run the shorter distance if he broke the 200 m national record. In the Jamaican Championships, he ran 19.75 s in the 200 m, breaking the 36-year-old Jamaican record held by Don Quarrie by 0.11 s.


title: Usain Bolt

text: Mills complied with Bolt's demand to run in the 100 m, and he was entered to run the event at the 23rd Vardinoyiannia meeting in Rethymno, Crete. In his debut tournament, he won the gold medal in a time of 10.03 s, feeding his enthusiasm for the event.


title: Usain Bolt

text: He built on this achievement at the 2007 World Championships in Osaka, Japan, winning a silver medal. Bolt recorded 19.91 s with a headwind of . The race was won by Tyson Gay in 19.76 s, a new championship record.


title: Usain Bolt

text: Bolt was a member of the silver medal relay team with Asafa Powell, Marvin Anderson, and Nesta Carter in the 4×100 metres relay. Jamaica set a national record of 37.89 s. Bolt did not win any gold medals at the major tournaments in 2007, but Mills felt that Bolt's technique was much improved, pinpointing improvements in Bolt's balance at the turns over 200 m and an increase in his stride frequency, giving him more driving power on the track.


title: Usain Bolt

text: The silver medals from the 2007 Osaka World Championships boosted Bolt's desire to sprint, and he took a more serious, more mature stance towards his career. Bolt continued to develop in the 100 m, and he decided to compete in the event at the Jamaica Invitational in Kingston. On 3 May 2008, Bolt ran a time of 9.76 s, with a tail wind, improving his personal best from 10.03 s. This was the second-fastest legal performance in the history of the event, second only to compatriot Asafa Powell's 9.74 s record set the previous year in Rieti, Italy. Rival Tyson Gay lauded the performance, especially praising Bolt's form and technique. Michael Johnson observed the race and said that he was shocked at how quickly Bolt had improved over the 100 m distance. The Jamaican surprised even himself with the time, but coach Glen Mills remained confident that there was more to come.


title: Usain Bolt

text: On 31 May 2008, Bolt set a new 100 m world record at the Reebok Grand Prix in the Icahn Stadium in New York City. He ran 9.72s with a tail wind of . This race was Bolt's fifth senior 100 m. Gay again finished second and said of Bolt: "It looked like his knees were going past my face." Commentators noted that Bolt appeared to have gained a psychological advantage over fellow Olympic contender Gay.


title: Usain Bolt

text: In June 2008, Bolt responded to claims that he was a lazy athlete, saying that the comments were unjustified, and he trained hard to achieve his potential. However, he surmised that such comments stemmed from his lack of enthusiasm for the 400 metres event; he chose not to make an effort to train for that particular distance. Turning his efforts to the 200 m, Bolt proved that he could excel in two events—first setting the world-leading time in Ostrava, then breaking the national record for the second time with a 19.67 s finish in Athens, Greece. Although Mills still preferred that Bolt focus on the longer distances, the acceptance of Bolt's demand to run in the 100 m worked for both sprinter and trainer. Bolt was more focused in practice, and a training schedule to boost his top speed and his stamina, in preparation for the Olympics, had improved both his 100 m and 200 m times.


title: Usain Bolt

text: Bolt doubled-up with the 100 metres and 200 metres events at the Beijing Summer Olympics. As the new 100 m world-record holder, he was the favourite to win both races. Michael Johnson, the 200 m and 400 m record holder, personally backed the sprinter, saying that he did not believe that a lack of experience would work against him. Bolt qualified for the 100 m final with times of 9.92 s and 9.85 s in the quarter-finals and semi-finals, respectively.


title: Usain Bolt

text: In the Olympic 100 m final (16 August), Bolt broke new ground, winning in 9.69 s (unofficially 9.683 s) with a reaction time of 0.165 s. This was an improvement upon his own world record, and he was well ahead of second-place finisher Richard Thompson, who finished in 9.89 s. Not only was the record set with no favourable wind (0.0 m/s), but he also visibly slowed down to celebrate before he finished and his shoelace was untied. Bolt's coach reported that, based upon the speed of Bolt's opening 60 m, he could have finished with a time of 9.52 s. After scientific analysis of Bolt's run by the Institute of Theoretical Astrophysics at the University of Oslo, Hans Eriksen and his colleagues also predicted a sub 9.60 s time. Considering factors such as Bolt's position, acceleration and velocity in comparison with second-place-finisher Thompson, the team estimated that Bolt could have finished in 9.55±0.04 s had he not slowed to celebrate before the finishing line.


title: Usain Bolt

text: Bolt stated that setting a world record was not a priority for him, and that his goal was just to win the gold medal, Jamaica's first of the 2008 Games. Olympic medallist Kriss Akabusi construed Bolt's chest slapping before the finish line as showboating, noting that the actions cost Bolt an even faster record time. IOC president Jacques Rogge also condemned the Jamaican's actions as disrespectful. Bolt denied that this was the purpose of his celebration by saying, "I wasn't bragging. When I saw I wasn't covered, I was just happy". Lamine Diack, president of the IAAF, supported Bolt and said that his celebration was appropriate given the circumstances of his victory. Jamaican government minister Edmund Bartlett also defended Bolt's actions, stating, "We have to see it in the glory of their moment and give it to them. We have to allow the personality of youth to express itself".


title: Usain Bolt

text: Bolt then focused on attaining a gold medal in the 200 m event, aiming to emulate Carl Lewis' double win in the 1984 Los Angeles Olympics. Michael Johnson felt that Bolt would easily win gold but believed that his own world record of 19.32 s set at the 1996 Summer Olympics in Atlanta would remain intact at the Olympics. Bolt eased through the first and second rounds of the 200 m, jogging towards the end of his run both times. He won his semi-final and progressed to the final as the favourite to win. Retired Jamaican sprinter Don Quarrie praised Bolt, saying he was confident that Johnson's record could be beaten. The following day, at the final, he won Jamaica's fourth gold of the Games, setting a new world and Olympic record of 19.30 s. Johnson's record fell despite the fact that Bolt was impeded by a headwind. The feat made him the first sprinter since Quarrie to hold both 100 m and 200 m world records simultaneously and the first to hold both records since the introduction of electronic timing. Furthermore, Bolt became the first sprinter to break both records at the same Olympics. Unlike in the 100 m final, Bolt sprinted hard all the way to the finishing line in the 200 m race, even dipping his chest to improve his time. Following the race, "Happy Birthday" was played over the stadium's sound system as his 22nd birthday would begin at midnight.


title: Usain Bolt

text: Two days later, Bolt ran as the third leg in the Jamaican 4 × 100 metres relay team, increasing his gold medal total to three. Along with teammates Nesta Carter, Michael Frater, and Asafa Powell, Bolt broke another world and Olympic record, their 37.10 s finish breaking the previous record by three-tenths of a second. Powell, who anchored the team to the finishing line, lamented the loss of his 100m record to Bolt but showed no animosity towards his Jamaican rival, stating that he was delighted to help him set his third world record. In January 2017 the Jamaican relay teammates were stripped of their gold medals when a blood sample taken from Carter after the race was retested and found positive for a banned substance. Following his victories, Bolt donated US$50,000 to the children of Sichuan province in China to help those harmed by the 2008 Sichuan earthquake.


title: Usain Bolt

text: Bolt's record-setting runs caused commentators not only to praise his achievements but to speculate about his potential to become one of the most successful sprinters in history. Critics hailed his Olympic success as a new beginning for a sport that had long suffered through high-profile drug scandals. The previous six years had seen the BALCO scandal, Tim Montgomery and Justin Gatlin stripped of their 100 m world records, and Marion Jones returning three Olympic gold medals. All three sprinters were disqualified from athletics after drugs tests detected banned substances in their systems. Bolt's record-breaking performances caused suspicion among some commentators, including Victor Conte, and the lack of an independent Caribbean anti-doping federation raised more concerns. The accusations of drug use were vehemently rejected by Glen Mills (Bolt's coach) and Herb Elliott (the Jamaican athletics team doctor). Elliott, a member of the IAAF anti-doping commission, urged those concerned about the issue to "come down and see our programme, come down and see our testing, we have nothing to hide". Mills had been equally ardent that Bolt was a clean athlete, declaring to the "Jamaica Gleaner": "We will test any time, any day, any part of the body...[he] doesn't even like to take vitamins". Bolt stated that he had been tested four times prior to the Olympics, and all had tested negative for banned substances. He also welcomed anti-doping authorities to test him to prove that he was clean, stating, "We work hard and we perform well and we know we're clean".


title: Usain Bolt

text: At the end of the 2008 athletics season, Bolt competed in the ÅF Golden League, beginning in Weltklasse Zürich. Despite having the slowest start among his competitors in the 100 m race, he still crossed the finishing line in 9.83 s. Even though the time was slower than both his newly set world record and Asafa Powell's track record, it was still among the top-fifteen 100 m finishes by any sprinter to that date. Bolt admitted that he was not running at full strength because he was suffering from a cold, but he concentrated on winning the race and finishing the season in good health. At the Super Grand Prix final in Lausanne, Bolt ran his second-fastest 200 m with a time of 19.63 s, equalling Xavier Carter's track record. However, it was the 100 m final, featuring Asafa Powell, that drew the most interest. Powell had moved closer to Bolt's world record after setting a new personal best of 9.72 s, reaffirming his status as Bolt's main contender. Bolt's final event of the season came three days later at the Golden League final in Brussels. This was the first 100 m race featuring both Bolt and Powell since the final in the Olympics. Both Jamaicans broke the track record, but Bolt came out on top with a time of 9.77 s, beating Powell by 0.06 s. Victory, however, did not come as smoothly as it had in Beijing. Bolt made the slowest start of the nine competitors and had to recover ground in cold conditions and against a headwind. Yet the results confirmed Jamaican dominance in the 100 m, with nine of the ten-fastest legal times in history being recorded by either Bolt or Powell.


title: Usain Bolt

text: On his return to Jamaica, Bolt was honoured in a homecoming celebration and received an Order of Distinction in recognition of his achievements at the Olympics. Additionally, Bolt was selected as the IAAF Male Athlete of the year, won a Special Olympic Award for his performances, and was named Laureus World Sportsman of the Year. Bolt turned his attention to future events, suggesting that he could aim to break the 400 metres world record in 2010 as no major championships were scheduled that year.


title: Usain Bolt

text: Bolt started the season competing in the 400 metres in order to improve his speed, winning two races and registering 45.54 s in Kingston, and windy conditions gave him his first sub-10 seconds finish of the season in the 100 m in March. In late April, Bolt suffered minor leg injuries in a car crash. However, he quickly recovered following minor surgery and (after cancelling a track meet in Jamaica) he stated that he was fit to compete in the 150 metres street race at the Manchester Great City Games. Bolt won the race in 14.35 s, the fastest time ever recorded for 150 m. Despite not being at full fitness, he took the 100 and 200 m titles at the Jamaican national championships, with runs of 9.86 s and 20.25 s respectively. This meant he had qualified for both events at the 2009 World Championships. Rival Tyson Gay suggested that Bolt's 100 m record was within his grasp, but Bolt dismissed the claim and instead noted that he was more interested in Asafa Powell's return from injury. Bolt defied unfavourable conditions at the Athletissima meet in July, running 19.59 seconds into a headwind and rain, to record the fourth fastest time ever over 200 m, one hundredth off Gay's best time.


title: Usain Bolt

text: The 2009 World Championships were held during August at the Olympic Stadium in Berlin, which was coincidentally the same month and venue where Jesse Owens had achieved world-wide fame 73 years earlier. Bolt eased through the 100-m heats, clocking the fastest ever pre-final performance of 9.89 seconds. The final was the first time that Bolt and Gay had met during the season, and Bolt set a new world record—which stands to this day—with a time of 9.58s to win his first World Championship gold medal. Bolt took more than a tenth of a second off his previous best mark, and this was the largest-ever margin of improvement in the 100-m world record since the beginning of electronic timing. Gay finished with a time of 9.71 s, 0.02 s off Bolt's 9.69 s world-record run in Beijing.


title: Usain Bolt

text: Although Gay withdrew from the second race of the competition, Bolt once again produced world record-breaking time in the 200 metres final. He broke his own record by 0.11 seconds, finishing with a time of 19.19 seconds. He won the 200 m race by the largest margin in World Championships history, even though the race had three other athletes running under 19.90 seconds, the greatest number ever in the event. Bolt's pace impressed even the more experienced of his competitors; third-placed Wallace Spearmon complimented his speed, and the Olympic champion in Athens 2004 Shawn Crawford said "Just coming out there...I felt like I was in a video game, that guy was moving – fast". Bolt pointed out that an important factor in his performance at the World Championships was his improved start to the races: his reaction times in the 100 m (0.146) and 200 m (0.133) were significantly faster than those he had produced in his world record runs at the Beijing Olympics. However, he, together with other members of Jamaican 4×100 m relay team, fell short of their own world record of 37.10 s set at 2008 Summer Olympics by timing 37.31 s, which is, however, a championship record and the second fastest time in history at that date.


title: Usain Bolt

text: On the last day of the Berlin Championships, the Governing Mayor of Berlin, Klaus Wowereit, presented Bolt with a 12-foot high section of the Berlin Wall in a small ceremony, saying Bolt had shown that "one can tear down walls that had been considered as insurmountable." The nearly three-ton segment was delivered to the Jamaica Military Museum in Kingston.


title: Usain Bolt

text: Several days after Bolt broke the world records in 100 and 200 metres events, Mike Powell, the world record holder in long jump (8.95 metres set in 1991) argued that Bolt could become the first man to jump over 9 metres, the long jump event being "a perfect fit for his speed and height". At the end of the season, he was selected as the IAAF World Athlete of the Year for the second year running.


title: Usain Bolt

text: Early on in the 2010 outdoor season, Bolt ran 19.56 seconds in the 200 m in Kingston, Jamaica for the fourth-fastest run of all-time, although he stated that he had no record breaking ambitions for the forthcoming season. He took to the international circuit May with wins in East Asia at the Colorful Daegu Pre-Championships Meeting and then a comfortable win in his 2010 IAAF Diamond League debut at the Shanghai Golden Grand Prix. Bolt made an attempt to break Michael Johnson's best time over the rarely competed 300 metres event at the Golden Spike meeting in Ostrava. He failed to match Johnson's ten-year-old record of 30.85 and suffered a setback in that his 30.97-second run in wet weather had left him with an Achilles tendon problem.


title: Usain Bolt

text: After his return from injury a month later, Bolt asserted himself with a 100 m win at the Athletissima meeting in Lausanne (9.82 seconds) and a victory over Asafa Powell at Meeting Areva in Paris (9.84 seconds). Despite this run of form, he suffered only the second loss of his career in a 100 m final at the DN Galan. Tyson Gay soundly defeated him with a run of 9.84 to Bolt's 9.97 seconds, and the Jamaican reflected that he had slacked off in training early in the season while Gay had been better prepared and in a better condition. This marked Bolt's first loss to Gay in the 100 m, which coincidentally occurred in the same stadium where Powell had beaten Bolt for the first time two years earlier.


title: Usain Bolt

text: Bolt went undefeated over 100 m and 200 m in the 2011 season. He began with wins in Rome and Ostrava in May. He ran his first 200 m in over a year in Oslo that June and his time of 19.86 seconds was a world-leading one. Two further 200 m wins came in Paris and Stockholm the following month, as did a 100 m in Monaco, though he was a tenth of a second slower than compatriot Asafa Powell before the world championships.


title: Usain Bolt

text: Considered the favourite to win in the 100 metres at the 2011 World Championships in Daegu, Bolt was eliminated from the final, breaking "ridiculously early" according to the starter in an interview for BBC Sport, and receiving a false start. This proved to be the highest profile disqualification for a false start since the IAAF changed the rules that previously allowed one false start per race. The disqualification caused some to question the new rule, with former world champion Kim Collins saying it was "a sad night for athletics". Usain Bolt's countryman, Yohan Blake, won in a comparatively slow 9.92 seconds.


title: Usain Bolt

text: In the World Championships 200 m, Bolt cruised through to the final which he won in a time of 19.40. Though this was short of his world record times of the two previous major tournaments, it was the fourth fastest run ever at that point, after his own records and Michael Johnson's former record, and left him three tenths of a second ahead of runner-up Walter Dix. This achievement made Bolt one of only two men to win consecutive 200 m world titles, alongside Calvin Smith. Bolt closed the championships with another gold with Jamaica in the 4 × 100 metres relay. Nesta Carter and Michael Frater joined world champions Bolt and Blake to set a world record time of 37.04.


title: Usain Bolt

text: Following the World Championships, Bolt ran 9.85 seconds for the 100 m to win in Zagreb before setting the year's best time of 9.76 seconds at the Memorial Van Damme. This run was overshadowed by Jamaican rival Blake's unexpected run of 19.26 seconds in the 200 m at the same meeting, which brought him within seven hundredths of Bolt's world record. Although Bolt failed to win the Diamond Race in a specific event, he was not beaten on the 2011 IAAF Diamond League circuit, taking three wins in each of his specialities that year.


title: Usain Bolt

text: Bolt began the 2012 season with a leading 100 m time of 9.82 seconds in May. He defeated Asafa Powell with runs of 9.76 seconds in Rome and 9.79 in Oslo. At the Jamaican Athletics Championships, he lost to Yohan Blake, first in the 200 m and then in the 100 m, with his younger rival setting leading times for the year.


title: Usain Bolt

text: However, at the 2012 London Olympics, he won the 100 metres gold medal with a time of 9.63 seconds, improving upon his own Olympic record and duplicating his gold medal from the 2008 Beijing Olympics. Blake was the silver medallist with a time of 9.75 seconds. Following the race, seventh-place finisher Richard Thompson of Trinidad and Tobago declared "There's no doubt he's the greatest sprinter of all time", while "USA Today" referred to Bolt as a Jamaican "national hero", noting that his victory came just hours before Jamaica was to celebrate the 50th anniversary of its independence from the United Kingdom. With his 2012 win, Bolt became the first man to successfully defend an Olympic sprint title since Carl Lewis in 1988.


title: Usain Bolt

text: Bolt followed this up with a successful defence of his Olympic 200 metres title with a time of 19.32 seconds, followed by Blake at 19.44 and Warren Weir at 19.84 to complete a Jamaican podium sweep. With this, Bolt became the first man in history to defend both the 100 m and 200 m Olympic sprint titles. He was dramatic in victory: in the final metres of the 200 m race, Bolt placed his fingers on his lips, gesturing to silence his critics, and after crossing the line he completed five push-ups – one for each of his Olympic gold medals.


title: Usain Bolt

text: On the final day of the 2012 Olympic athletics, Bolt participated in Jamaica's gold medal-winning 4×100 metres relay team along with Nesta Carter, Michael Frater and Blake. With a time of 36.84 seconds, they knocked two tenths of a second from their previous world record from 2011. He celebrated by imitating the "Mobot" celebration of Mo Farah, who had claimed a long-distance track double for the host nation.


title: Usain Bolt

text: International Olympic Committee (IOC) President Jacques Rogge initially stated that Bolt was not yet a "legend" and would not deserve such acclaim until the end of his career, but later called him the best sprinter of all time. Following the Olympics he was confirmed as the highest earning track and field athlete in history.


title: Usain Bolt

text: Bolt ended his season with wins on the 2012 IAAF Diamond League circuit; he had 200 m wins of 19.58 and 19.66 in Lausanne and Zürich before closing with a 100 m of 9.86 in Brussels. The latter run brought him his first Diamond League title in the 100 m.


title: Usain Bolt

text: Bolt failed to record below 10 seconds early season and had his first major 100 m race of 2013 at the Golden Gala in June. He was served an unexpected defeat by Justin Gatlin, with the American winning 9.94 to Bolt's 9.95. Bolt denied the loss was due to a hamstring issue he had early that year and Gatlin responded: "I don't know how many people have beaten Bolt but it's an honour". With Yohan Blake injured, Bolt won the Jamaican 100 m title ahead of Kemar Bailey-Cole and skipped the 200 m, which was won by Warren Weir. Prior to the 2013 World Championships in Athletics, Bolt set world leading times in the sprints, with 9.85 for the 100 m at the London Anniversary Games and 19.73 for the 200 m in Paris.


title: Usain Bolt

text: Bolt regained the title as world's fastest man by winning the World Championships 100 metres in Moscow. In wet conditions, he edged Gatlin by eight hundredths of a second with 9.77, which was the fastest run that year. Gatlin was the sole non-Jamaican in the top five, with Nesta Carter, Nickel Ashmeade and Bailey-Cole finishing next.


title: Usain Bolt

text: Bolt was less challenged in the 200 m final. His closest rival was Jamaican champion Warren Weir but Bolt ran a time of 19.66 to finish over a tenth of a second clear. This performance made Bolt the first man in the history of the 200 metres at the World Championships in Athletics to win three gold medals over the distance.


title: Usain Bolt

text: Bolt won a third consecutive world relay gold medal in the 4 × 100 metres relay final, which made him the most successful athlete in the 30-year history of the world championships. The Jamaican team, featuring four of the top five from the 100 m final were comfortable winners with Bolt reaching the finish line on his anchor leg three tenths of a second ahead of the American team anchored by Gatlin. Bolt's performances were matched on the women's side by Shelly-Ann Fraser-Pryce, meaning Jamaica took a complete sweep of the sprint medals at the 2013 World Championships.


title: Usain Bolt

text: After the championships, Bolt took 100 m wins on the 2013 IAAF Diamond League circuit in Zürich and Brussels. He remained unbeaten in the 200 m and his only loss that year was to Gatlin over 100 m in Rome. For the fifth time in six years, Bolt was named IAAF World Male Athlete of the Year.


title: Usain Bolt

text: An injury to Bolt's hamstring in March 2014 caused him to miss nine weeks of training. Having recovered from surgery, Bolt competed in the 4 × 100 metres relay of the 2014 Commonwealth Games in Glasgow. Not in peak form Bolt said that he was attending the Games for the fans and to show his progress since the injury. Bolt and his teammates won the 4 × 100 metres relay in 37.58 seconds – a Commonwealth Games record. This was the foremost competition of the year for Bolt, given no Olympics or World Championships in 2014.


title: Usain Bolt

text: In August 2014, Bolt set the indoor 100 m world record in Warsaw with a time of 9.98 seconds. This was his sole individual outing of the 2014 season. Soon afterwards he ended his season early in order to be fit for the 2015 season. In Bolt's absence, Justin Gatlin had dominated the sprints, holding the year's fastest times, including seven of the top ten 100 m runs that season.


title: Usain Bolt

text: At the start of 2015, he intended to make the 2017 World Championships in Athletics his last major competition before retirement.


title: Usain Bolt

text: Upon his return from injury, Bolt appeared a reduced figure at the start of the 2015 season. He ran only two 100 m and three 200 m before the major championship. He opened with 10.12 seconds for the 100 m and 20.20 for the 200 m. He won the 200 m in New York and Ostrava, but his season's best time of 20.13 seconds ranked him 20th in the world going into the championships. Two 100 m runs of 9.87 in July in London showed better form, but in comparison, Justin Gatlin was easily the top ranked sprinter – the American had times of 9.74 and 19.57 seconds, and had already run under 9.8 seconds on four occasions that season. Bolt entered the World Championships to defend his sprint titles but was not the comfortable favourite he had been since 2008.


title: Usain Bolt

text: In the World Championships 100 m, Bolt won his semi-final in 9.96, which lagged Gatlin's semi-final win in 9.77 seconds. However, Gatlin did not match that form in the final while Bolt improved through the rounds. In a narrow victory, Bolt leaned at the line to beat Gatlin 9.79 to 9.80 seconds. Bolt joined Carl Lewis and Maurice Greene on a record three 100 m world titles.


title: Usain Bolt

text: A similar outcome followed in the 200 m World finals. In the semi-final, Gatlin outpaced Bolt – the Jamaican at 19.95 and the American at 19.87. Despite such slow times prior to Beijing, Bolt delivered in the final with his fifth fastest run ever for the 200 m at 19.55 seconds. Gatlin failed to reach his early season form and finished almost two-tenths of a second behind Bolt. Bolt's four consecutive wins over 200 m at the World Championships was unprecedented and established him clearly as the best ever sprinter at the competition.


title: Usain Bolt

text: There was also a fourth straight win in the 4 × 100 metres relay with the Jamaica team (Nesta Carter, Asafa Powell, Nickel Ashmeade, Usain Bolt). The Americans initially had a lead, but a poor baton exchange saw them disqualified and Jamaica defend their title in 37.36 seconds – well clear of the Chinese team who took a surprise silver for the host nation.


title: Usain Bolt

text: Conscious of his injuries at the start of the season, he did not compete after the World Championships, skipping the 2015 IAAF Diamond League final.


title: Usain Bolt

text: Bolt competed sparingly in the 200 m before the Olympics, with a run of 19.89 seconds to win at the London Grand Prix being his sole run of note over that distance. He had four races over 100 m, though only one was in Europe, and his best of 9.88 seconds in Kingston placed him fourth on the world seasonal rankings. As in the previous season, Gatlin appeared to be in better form, having seasonal bests of 9.80 and 19.75 seconds to rank first and second in the sprints. Doping in athletics was a prime topic before the 2016 Rio Olympics, given the banning of the Russian track and field team for state doping, and Bolt commented that he had no problem with doping controls: "I have no issue with being drug-tested...I remember in Beijing every other day they were drug-testing us". He also highlighted his dislike of rival Tyson Gay's reduced ban for cooperation, given their close rivalry since the start of Bolt's career, saying "it really bothered me – really, really bothered me".


title: Usain Bolt

text: At the 2016 Rio Olympics, Bolt won the 100 metres gold medal with a time of 9.81 seconds. With this win, Bolt became the first athlete to win the event three times at the Olympic Games. Bolt followed up his 100 m win with a gold medal in the 200 m, which also makes him the first athlete to win the 200 m three times at the Olympic Games. Bolt ran the anchor leg for the finals of the 4 × 100 m relay and secured his third consecutive and last Olympic gold medal in the event. With that win, Bolt obtained the "triple-triple", three sprinting gold medals in three consecutive Olympics, and finished his Olympic career with a 100% win record in finals. However, in January 2017, Bolt was stripped of the 4 × 100 relay gold from the Beijing Games in 2008 because his teammate Nesta Carter was found guilty of a doping violation.


title: Usain Bolt

text: Bolt took a financial stake in a new Australia-based track and field meeting series – Nitro Athletics. He performed at the inaugural meet in February 2017 and led his team (Bolt All-Stars) to victory. The competition featured variations on traditional track and field events. He committed himself to three further editions.