THE British office girl who captured the heart of Olympic champion Usain Bolt during the Games has ended their romance… because he lives too far away.
Megan Edwards, 22, split from the world’s fastest man after he flew her to Jamaica to meet his family.
The down-to-earth accounts worker decided that the 4,600 miles between her and the smitten sprinter was too much to handle, and she wouldn’t be able to handle his globe-trotting lifestyle either.
Devastated Usain, 26, begged her to change her mind, but Megan revealed: “In the end I had to let my head rule my heart.
“It was amazing out there, but that’s where I decided it couldn’t go on. He was talking about having to fly here and there and I was going back to my office job.
“So when I got home I rang him and told him it wasn’t going to work. I said the distance thing and not seeing him often enough was a problem for me.
“He was very upset and said ‘Don’t do it, what can I do?’. I told him, ‘There is nothing you can do... you are who you are’.
“I am just a normal girl and I know people say, ‘You would have been fine with it’, but I wouldn’t. If I was a celebrity then our relationship probably would have lasted longer.”
Junior athlete Megan caught the eye of the 100m world record holder when she was chosen to model Jamaica’s team kit for the Games and appeared on a catwalk with him.
He begged her for her number then bombarded her with texts before they went on a string of romantic dates.
Megan told a friend: “I thought he was quiet, very handsome and unassuming. I wasn’t star-struck and maybe he liked that. I didn’t see him as a mega global superstar like everyone else does.
“He was really sweet to talk to, nothing like the shouty show-off you see when he wins a race. Then I thought, ‘Wow, Usain Bolt has asked for my number’. I was shocked.”
The couple were first publicly linked in September after they were spotted at London’s Movida club. By then he had stunned the world with his triple Gold success.
Megan told her friend: “We’d been seeing each other before the story broke but kept it quiet as he was focused on the Olympics. He asked me to see him at his place because it was hard for him to go out in public.
“I would turn up, buzz the door and one of his assistants would come and let me in.
“We’d chill out and watch television or I’d watch him play computer games. He really liked Call of Duty, which is not really my scene but I have younger brothers who play it. The first time I went around there I was pretty nervous. I thought ‘This is Usain Bolt, for God’s sake, the guy probably has girls throwing themselves at him left, right and centre, and he’s with me’.
“I wanted to go on a proper date but he was worried he’d get swamped by fans. He can’t even sit in a restaurant without being asked for his autograph.”
During their secret liaisons the pair began to grow even closer.
“The more I got to know him the more I liked him... it was the same as any successful courtship,” said Megan. “It was exciting. He is a very funny character and made me laugh a lot.”
She told her friend: “I did occasionally think about being Mrs Bolt and living in Jamaica with lots of little Bolts. My feelings were pretty strong for him, strong enough that I wanted to go to Jamaica.
“I am quite a reserved person normally and don’t fall in love straight away. I try to protect myself and kept thinking I was possibly competing with 50 other girls. He’s Usain Bolt... he can have anyone.”
She was overjoyed when the track star, who has an estimated personal fortune of more than £30million, invited her to Jamaica.
Megan said: “He asked me to come see him at his home because it was so difficult to get any private time together. He organised everything. I flew first- class which was amazing. I’ve never done that before. I know he is a millionaire and it isn’t much money to him but it was still nice.
“I met lots of his friends and family and his brother. He lives in a big house in Jamaica with a big garden and swimming pool and a massive bath upstairs, which I guess he needs because he is so tall.
“We went out to restaurants – well, more like shacks – but it’s what they have in Jamaica. We would go out at 1 or 2am to nightclubs and we danced to reggae until 6am, drinking lemonade and cranberry juice to keep cool.”
Although it was only a short trip, Megan, who runs for Dartford Harriers Club in Kent, tried to keep herself in shape.
“He took me to the University of West Indies where he trains,” she said.
“He would drive me in the morning and sit and wait while I finished my session and then we would go back to the house for lunch. He had a chef who prepares his food for him, but I think most wealthy people in Jamaica do and we were only eating rice and peas really.
“He has a much more relaxed life there. It’s a tiny island and people are used to seeing him. He doesn’t get bothered.”
“We live at opposite ends of the globe,” she told a friend. “He talked about flying all over the place and there’s me having to go back to Dartford.
“I really liked him, but I only have a set amount of holiday that I can use each year and I’mnot going to use it all up going to see Usain Bolt in Jamaica.
“A few things crystallised in my head while I was away and when I got back. So after a couple of days I telephoned him to call it off. It was very hard and I was upset too.
“In the end he asked if we could still be friends and I said, ‘Of course... you haven’t done anything wrong to me’. I don’t think he was expecting it.
“It wasn’t as though it fizzled out. It was just at this present moment in time we are, neither of us, in the right place.
“And I told him that it wasn’t right for us to be together right now and that it just wasn’t going to work out between us.”
Now Megan is concentrating on her own Olympic dream, taking inspiration from the boyfriend she had to let go.
“I hope to go to Rio in 2016 and do the 800 or 1500 metres,” she said. “Perhaps Usain will be there too...”
No comments:
Post a Comment