Usain who?

England and Leicester winger Jonny May can officially call himself one of the fastest players in world rugby, after he incredibly clocked a better spring record than Usain Bolt in training recently.

May, who has been in incredible form since making the switch to Leicester over the summer, says he was in a state of shock when he recorded a personal best of 10.49 metres per second in a 40-metre speed test last Saturday.

The record equates to a time of 9.53 seconds over 100 metres. Usain Bolt’s world record is 9.58 seconds, which he set in 2009. To make things even more remarkable, May did this during a rehabilitation run to make sure he had fully recovered from a recent hamstring problem.

“I was gobsmacked because I had just tweaked my hammy the week before,” said May.

“It was a rehab run. I didn’t think I would go anywhere that fast. I knew I had to run flat out to test it. I was pretty nervous but it was fine. And I ran quick as well and it was a bonus.”

May, who was recently named Aviva Premiership Player of the Month, put his sprint time down to what he called his “OCD” conditioning work, which includes up to four hours of stretching every day.

“When you have an injury like that and your speed gets taken away from you it makes you more determined,” May said.

“I was always really focused on being quick. When I hurt my knee I was, ‘I need to work harder than ever now’.

“I spend at least three or four times as much time warming up and warming down as I do on the training pitch. It’s the way you’ve got to be if you want to perform at the top end, for me anyway. For me it’s necessary to get all those things right to do what I want to do.

“It’s almost like an OCD routine … I’ve always done stretching from my teenage years. The more you train, the more you need to look after your body and respect it.”

[The Telegraph]