I was happy to have the recent opportunity to interview former track star and current NBC sports Emmy-nominated analyst Ato Boldon a few weeks ago. We were having a tough time linking up, and once I realized that he'd be staying in Florida for an 18 hour window, I was happy to conduct the interview from my car right after ordering dinner. Fortunately, I made it back before the food arrived!
This excerpt was from the article introduction. For the actual Q&A, please visit the latest issue of TrackNation magazine at issue6.tracknation.com. I am happy to report that our Facebook page now has over 89,000 likes!
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| Boldon in his racing prime, running for Trinidad and Tobago |
It’s not surprising that a man who has run the 100-meters in 9.86 is hard to catch. But even 15 years after his personal best time in Lausanne, Switzerland, Ato Boldon remains a man on the move, and tough to track down. TrackNation managed to spend a few minutes with the 4-time Olympic medal winner on a recent Monday afternoon. He was home in Florida just the day after arriving from New York, where he had served as the lead analyst for the IAAF Diamond League Adidas Grand Prix meet as part of the NBC Sports broadcasting team, which includes Leigh Diffey, Lewis Johnson, and fellow Olympian Dwight Stones.
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| These days, Boldon is earning his professional reputation in front of the camera, even earning an Emmy nomination for his sports coverage with NBC. |
But the visit home was a brief one. The following day, the native of Trinidad and Tobago was readying to board a plane to Guyana, to work with 1988 Jamaican track Olympic silver medalist Grace Jackson, giving several lectures in a national sports management workshop held by the Guyanese government.
Along with his broadcasting duties, which last year earned him an Emmy nomination as Outstanding Sports Personality, Boldon also serves as a sprint coach for NFL hopefuls, a pilot, speaker, filmmaker, talk show host, former politician, and ambassador for the IAAF.
Boldon’s emergence on the track started at a young age. In 1992, at 18, he found his way on to the world spotlight after two double gold medal winning performances (100 and 200 meters) at the CAC Junior Championships, and the World Junior Championships. This earned him a spot on the Trinidad and Tobago Olympic team which competed in Barcelona. Later, he won two NCAA titles with UCLA, the second one breaking a collegiate record in the 100 meters with a 9.92. At the 1996 Atlanta Olympics, he earned the first two of his medals, scoring bronze in the open sprints. The following year saw a world championship, in the 200 at the Athens World Championships. In 1997, Boldon also clocked his best mark in the 200, with a blazing 19.77 performance in Stuttgart, Germany. He followed with more gold in 1998 at the Commonwealth (100-meter) and Goodwill (200-meter) Games.
After several more world and Olympic medals, Bolton completed his track career at the age of 30, soon after helping his home country to its first-ever Olympic finals in the 4x100 relay at the 2004 Athens Games. Since retiring, his professional life has been a whirlwind of activity.
A year away from competition, he wrote, produced and directed the film “Once In A Lifetime: Boldon in Bahrain,” a documentary which followed the sprinter and country mates to Bahrain to follow their soccer team in its attempt to qualify for first FIFA World Cup, which it did, becoming the smallest nation to ever qualify.
His broadcasting career, in particular, has been receiving notice at all levels. In 2014, he was teamed with Cris Collinsworth (who beat him out for last year’s Outstanding Sports Personality Emmy), and Mary Carillo for Winter Olympic coverage. Said the New York Times (in 2008), “Boldon has emerged as one of NBC’s best analysts, a blend of athletic smarts, charisma, precise analysis and brashness.”
Most recently, Boldon received another honor, being selected to work with the Doha Goals forum, a 10-member committee which hosted a “Ministers of Sport Summit” last December. Joining him on the committee were such sports legends as Nadia Comaneci, Boris Becker, Bart Conner, and fellow track world champions Wilson Kipketer and Jonathan Edwards.
To read the interview -- click here
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