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Motivation Quote by Usain Bolt

"If you want to make a good athlete, let them have fun"

About this Quote

Bolt’s line lands like a rebuke to the joyless machinery of modern youth sports: the travel teams, the algorithmic training plans, the adult anxieties disguised as “development.” Coming from the most decorated sprinter alive, it’s not a soft, feel-good poster for the gym wall; it’s a performance note from someone who built a career on looseness as much as discipline. Bolt’s public persona was play - the grins, the “to di world” swagger, the Lightning Bolt pose - and he’s hinting that this wasn’t decoration. It was fuel.

The intent is practical. “Good athlete” isn’t “happy kid” or “well-rounded person,” though those may follow. He’s arguing that fun is a training technology: it keeps people in the sport long enough to get good, and it lowers the psychological drag that makes bodies tight and risk-averse. Sprinting, especially at Bolt’s level, punishes tension. Joy reads as confidence, and confidence reads as speed.

The subtext pushes against a familiar adult myth: that seriousness produces excellence. Bolt flips the equation. Fun isn’t the reward after hard work; it’s the condition that makes hard work sustainable. There’s also a quiet democratizing message here: not every athlete will have elite coaching or perfect resources, but everyone can access play, experimentation, and intrinsic motivation.

Context matters: Bolt’s era was hyper-professional, with constant scrutiny and doping suspicion hanging over track. “Have fun” doubles as a humanizing claim - greatness doesn’t have to look like suffering to be real.

Quote Details

TopicCoaching
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Citation Formats

APA Style (7th ed.)
Bolt, Usain. (n.d.). If you want to make a good athlete, let them have fun. FixQuotes. https://fixquotes.com/quotes/if-you-want-to-make-a-good-athlete-let-them-have-172087/

Chicago Style
Bolt, Usain. "If you want to make a good athlete, let them have fun." FixQuotes. Accessed February 1, 2026. https://fixquotes.com/quotes/if-you-want-to-make-a-good-athlete-let-them-have-172087/.

MLA Style (9th ed.)
"If you want to make a good athlete, let them have fun." FixQuotes, https://fixquotes.com/quotes/if-you-want-to-make-a-good-athlete-let-them-have-172087/. Accessed 1 Feb. 2026.

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About the Author

Usain Bolt

Usain Bolt (born August 21, 1986) is a Athlete from Jamaica.

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