Time Ranks Bolt among Top 5 Persons of 2009

TIME Magazine today named ace Jamaican sprinter and world record holder for the 100 and 200 metres, Usain Bolt, among the four runners-up for its prestigious “Person of the Year” 2009.
The award went to Ben Bernanke, the 56-year-old chairman of the United States’ central bank, the Federal Reserves, who is credited with preventing the economic catastrophe threatened by the weakened economy in 2009.
There were four runners-up: Jamaica’s Usain Bolt; the Chinese Worker, credited for making that country the world’s fastest growing major economy; Speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives, Nancy Pelosi; and the Commander of the U.S. forces in Afghanistan, General Stanley McChrystal.
Those in the third level, “People Who Mattered Most”, included: U.S. President Barack Obama, who won last year; President of Afghanistan, Hamid Karzai; TV latenight hosts Jay Leno and David Letterman; U.S. presidential aspirant Sarah Palin; Ponzi scheme king, the disgraced Bernard “Bernie” Madoff; new U.S. Supreme Court judge, Sonia Sotomayor; baseballer Alex Rodriquez; golfer Tiger Woods; and “The Twitter Guys”.
“The beauty of springing lies in its simplicity. Running is the rawest form of athleticism; no piece of equipment can control your fate; no teammates can lift you up or slow you down. It’s you and your motor to the finish. And when Bolt hit speeds approaching 30 mph (48 km/h) on the track, we witness man morph into machine,” the TIME article said about the Jamaican sprint star.
TIME has been choosing a Man of the Year since 1927, starting with Chares Lindberg. Winners have included Haile Selassie, Franklin Roosevelt, Adolf Hitler, Josef Stalin, Winston Churchill, Queen Elizabeth, John F. Kennedy, Martin Luther King Jr., Barack Obama and Bill Clinton.