Kendra thunder tops Bolt
LONDON: Jamaican sprint legend Usain Bolt promised he will be physically ready for next month’s Rio Olympics — on the night Kendra Harrison broke the 28-year-old 100 metres hurdles world record.
Bolt, running at the track where he achieved the individual Olympic sprint double and the 4x100m relay for the second time four years ago in London, was the star attraction on day one of the Anniversary Games in front of 40,000 people at the Olympic stadium and he did not disappoint in the men’s 200m.
Brushing aside any concerns about the hamstring injury which forced him to withdraw from his country’s Olympic trials in Kingston earlier this month, Bolt ran a time of 19.89sec in his first competitive 200m of this season.
STAR OF THE NIGHT
For once, though, Bolt was not the best athletics performance of the night. That went instead to an American who, incredibly, will not be running in Rio. Harrison has not been selected for the US Olympic team but she showed the selectors what they will be missing by lowering the 100m hurdles world record. The mark of 12.21sec ran by Bulgarian Yordanka Donkova has stood since 1988 but Harrison went 0.01sec under that to earn himself a Diamond League bonus of $50,000.
BOLT ACCUSES GATLIN OF ‘DISRESPECT’
Bolt reignited his rivalry with fellow sprinter Justin Gatlin, accusing the American of “disrespect”, just two weeks before the Rio Olympics. The 29-year-old had received a medical exemption to miss the Jamaican trials — sparking claims from Gatlin who said he had preferential treatment that he would not receive were he American. “For me I felt it was a joke, I felt it was a disrespect they think I’d back out of a trials,” he said. “I’ve proven myself year on year that I’m the greatest. I laughed when I heard it, I was disappointed, especially in Justin Gatlin.”