RUNNING IS A NUMBERS GAME, as the two individuals goofing around together on a sun-kissed beach in Jamaica know only too well. For the tall guy with the laid-back vibe and broad smile, the salient figures are 9.58, 19.19 and perhaps eight – the sprint times he’s achieved and the Olympic golds he’s accrued during his incomparable sprinting career. For the petite character alongside him with the bright neon running top and the rocksplitting abs? Try 2.3m, 1.2m and 1.28m – her following on Instagram, TikTok and YouTube respectively. This stagemanaged, sponsor-orchestrated meeting of Usain Bolt and Lisa Migliorini, aka The Fashion Jogger, on the paradise islet of Lime Cay neatly encapsulates something that anyone near the sport knows only too well: running influencers are having their moment in the sun.
‘It was amazing to meet him,’ says Migliorini. ‘He’s one of my idols since I was a child. It was just amazing.’ Migliorini says ‘amazing’ a lot. She’s upbeat; relentlessly so. You could power the national grid on her positivity. And in an increasingly crowded field, that’s probably one of the things that has got her out front. That, and the fact that she was a pioneer of the genre – a forerunner, if you will – starting out in 2017 with her nowfiancé Fabio, with whom she studied physiotherapy and osteopathy.
‘I was the first one to mix the running with the content creation and influencer part,’ she says. ‘I wanted to motivate a community to start running and to follow a healthy life, but at the same time let them discover the latest shoes, outfits and share my experiences training and running races all over the world. The idea was clear, but we really didn’t think it would get to this level.’
The Bolt meeting – the big man arrived from his nearby home via speedboat – was in March at the end of a Puma-endorsed five-day visit to the Caribbean for Migliorini. In the months prior, the 30-year-old had spent time in Monaco, Rome, Paris, St Moritz, Jordan and New York, where she took a chopper ride over Manhattan, made her tearful marathon debut (a highly creditable 3:19:17) and – more tears – accepted Fabio’s diamond Tiffany engagement ring on the finish line. She’s hung out with Eliud Kipchoge in Berlin, Mo Farah in Milan and Max Verstappen on the grid at Monza. You
