Usain Bolt Stars In New Gatorade Ad

Who says gorging on sweets and McDonald's meals is bad for you?

Take Usain Bolt, for example. The Jamaican sprinter is the fastest man alive and, following his fantastic performance in the London Olympics, one of the biggest stars on the planet.

Yet the six-time Olympic gold medallist managed all of this on a diet of Chicken McNuggets (his favourite food) and, according to this new ad by TBWA\Chiat\Day, Gatorade energy chews.

In other words, he is a walking advertisement for everything your doctor always told you not to eat. In fact, maybe if you had ignored medical advice during your formative years, you too could have been lining up on the blocks at the Olympics Stadium a fortnight ago alongside Bolt. OK, maybe not.

Anyway, the ad is the latest in Gatorade's #Inside campaign, in which their energy chews are positioned as the breakfast, lunch and dinner of champions, thanks to some celebrity endorsements from the likes of NBA star Kevin Durant, tennis champ Serena Williams and swimmer Ryan Lochte.

The newest video milks Bolt's Olympic success to the full - and the fact they were not an official sponsor. As the hooded 100m champ walks down London's cobbled streets like some kind of modern-day Jack The Ripper, presumably about to cut his opponents down to size or something, a narrator begins by saying, "We weren't there on stadium billboards."

He continues: "We weren't there on double-decker buses. We weren't on buttons, souvenirs or commemorative snow globes. We weren't there officially sponsoring anything. We were there for real. Inside the bodies of some of the greatest athletes on earth."

Cut to an image of Bolt lining up on the starting blocks, presumably ready to murder the opposition.

The ad is actually an edited version of another launched before London 2012 even kicked off, in which Bolt himself bragged about how he was going to vanquish any pretenders to his sprinting throne. 

After his phenomenal performance in London, it was more than just hot air. Whether this ad will leave Gatorade proudly sitting on top of the podium, we will have to wait and see.