Shortly after breaking the world 100 metres sprint record at the Atlanta Olympics in 1996, Donovan Bailey ruffled some Canadian feathers by telling a reporter from one of the Caribbean islands: "I'm a Jamaican first. That's where I'm from. That's home. I'm a Jamaican-born Canadian sprinter."

Bailey, who has since surrendered the world record and retired from athletics,  would show his diplomatic side the next day by saying in an interview: "Everyone knows I'm Jamaican born, but I'm also Canadian. There is no way I'll choose one over the other. All Jamaicans can be proud (of the gold medal) because I'm Jamaican born. All Canadians can be proud because I'm equally Canadian.

"In Jamaica I have lots of family. But I grew up in Canada. All my friends are in Canada. The two places I'll choose to live the rest of my life are Jamaica and Canada. When it gets cold, I'll go to Jamaica; when it gets warm I'll come back up."

Bailey's is truly a story of two worlds, and he is equally comfortable with both.

Born on December 16, 1967 in Manchester, Jamaica, he is one of five sons of George and Daisy Bailey. Bailey remembers playing in the quiet, open spaces of the countryside, climbing trees abundant with fruit, swimming in cool, clear rivers and living in a home filled with love.

His family emigrated to Canada in 1980 when he was 13, where he attended the Queen Elizabeth Park Secondary School in Oakville, Ontario. Later on, he attained a degree in Economics from Sheridan College in Oakville.

While he was always very good at sports, strangely enough, Bailey's first love was not athletics but basketball. He began competing as a 100m sprinter only part-time in 1991, by which time he was also a successful businessman.

The story goes that it was while watching a Canadian national athletics meeting that Bailey decided to get serious about sprinting. He looked at the 100m race and was convinced he could do better than those athletes.

Dan Pfaff, Bailey's coach at Louisiana State University, recalls his first meeting with the future world champion.

"The first time I met Donovan, which was at the 1993 world championships in Stuttgart, I thought he had a terrible, terrible attitude," said Pfaff. "He was having a tirade over being left off the (Canadian) team and he seemed so self-centred."

Pfaff invited him down to LSU that summer. "Three times he called to tell me he was on his way, and he never showed up," said Pfaff, adding that Bailey finally arrived in the new year.

Up until that time, he was an angry young sprinter. He was full of potential, but plagued with nagging injuries, a chip on his shoulder toward Athletics Canada and an indifferent attitude toward training.

When Bailey eventually did show up at LSU, he was, according to Pfaff, in "horrible shape".

It would be Bailey's association with Pfaff that would bring a serious new attitude to sprinting.

Pfaff said he did not overhaul Bailey's running technique, but fine-tuned it and introduced the brash, young Canadian to the values of weight training.

Bailey is often described as an athlete who "came out of nowhere", understandable given his dramatic improvement in time between 1993 and 1994. "If anything, it has been very systematic," Pfaff countered. "The foundation and natural talent was already there."

The following year saw his international breakthrough. At the World Championships in Gothenburg, Sweden, Bailey won both the 100 metre sprint and the 4 x 100 metre relay titles.

He repeated that double win at the 1996 Atlanta Olympics, setting a world record of 9.84 seconds in the 100m (the previous record was set in July 1994 by American Leroy Burrell at 9.85 seconds). Many Canadians felt his victory restored the image of Canadian athletes, which had been tarnished by Ben Johnson's previous disqualified win at the 1988 Summer Olympics in Seoul.

Bailey won a third world title in 1997 with the Canadian relay team, while finishing second in the 100m behind Maurice Greene.

In June of 1997 he raced against Michael Johnson in a 150m race at Toronto's Skydome (now Rogers Centre), in a bid to truly determine who was the world's fastest man. He won $2 million for winning that race, in which Johnson pulled up lame at the 100m with an injured quadricep muscle.

After that season, Bailey struggled with injuries and never reached his previous level of performance. He retired from the sport in 2001 having been a five-time World and Olympic champion.

Bailey still holds the indoor world record in the 50 metres (5.56, in Reno, Nevada, in 1996), and the Olympic, Commonwealth and Canadian records for the 100 metres. He has shared the latter title with Bruny Surin since 1999.

He now has his own company called DBX Sport Management, which helps amateur athletes find a way to promote themselves.

Bailey has also committed himself to a number of charitable works, including spokesperson for the Big Brothers & Big Sisters of Toronto and the Canadian Cancer Society. He generously gives his time to many other charities and has recently created the Donovan Bailey Fund, committed to the advancement and financial assistance of Canada's most talented amateur athletes, so that they too may have an opportunity to achieve gold.