BEIJING Are you ready to Bolt?

Are you ready to embrace the world's fastest man – a Jamaican who slowed up and showboated near the finish of the Olympic 100-meter dash Saturday and still set a world record?

I am. I don't much care about Usain Bolt's showboating. I wish he hadn't done it, but the guy won a gold medal and set a world record anyway – 9.69 seconds – and you can't argue with that. He turned what was supposed to be a three-man race into a personal showcase.

Bolt could have run 9.55, maybe, without looking at the crowd, stretching out his arms, pounding his chest and coasting the final 20 meters. But hey, he's 21. Cut him a little slack, because it's worth it to enjoy that raw talent.

“Usain is like LeBron James,” said U.S. sprinter Darvis Patton, who finished eighth. “He's a young guy doing things that haven't ever been done before. He's a freak of nature.”

At 6-foot-5, Bolt is a half-foot taller than most of his competitors. That's unusual. So was Bolt's routine before Saturday's race, which went like this: Sleep until 11a.m. Watch some TV. Get some Chicken McNuggets for lunch. Go back to sleep for three hours. Get some more Chicken McNuggets. Go to the track.

But hey, whatever works. Track and field – trying to rebound from the latest round of steroid scandals that nearly wrecked the sport – needs a dazzling star like this.

Bolt danced before and after his race. He shot an imaginary bow and arrow. He disappeared into a crowd of happy Jamaicans at trackside. He walked around barefoot after the race, holding his golden shoes in one hand.

He was magnetic the whole night – not just for the less than 10 seconds when he actually performed his best work.

Bolt saved a race that saw its other two marquee competitors fail. Bolt's countryman Asafa Powell finished fifth. America's Tyson Gay didn't even qualify for the final after finishing fifth in his semifinal heat.

“It was kind of devastating,” Gay said.

It wouldn't have mattered. Coming back from a hamstring injury, Gay was nowhere near ready to run with Bolt. Nor was anyone else in Beijing. Second-place finisher Richard Thompson, of Trinidad & Tobago, was almost two-tenths of a second behind Bolt – a lifetime in a 100-meter dash.

“I could see him slowing down,” Thompson said, “and I was still pumping to the line.”

American Walter Dix was third.

Bolt will win the 200-meter dash, too, unless he gets sick from a McNuggets-only diet. He's too good not to.

Bolt said he slowed and stretched out his arms at the end because he knew he was going to win and wasn't worried about breaking his world record (previously 9.72).

“I wasn't bragging,” he claimed.

Oh, yeah, he was. He was feeling really good about himself and telling the world to look at him.

But who among us never did that at age 21?

Bolt is not really lightning, although that's the analogy everyone uses because of his last name. He's more of a summer breeze blowing over a Jamaican beach. He makes you feel good.

So if you can forgive Bolt his braggadocio, you should. Let him make you happy for a while, for it's a pleasure to watch a man run like no other man ever has.