Malone sets sights on beating Bolt’s record
New Zealand para-athlete Liam Malone wants to design super blades that will allow him to be quicker than sprinting great Usain Bolt.
Malone, who captured gold in the 200m and 400m T44 category and silver in the 100m at last year’s Rio Paralympics, is in London for the world para athletics championships, but isn’t competing due to injury.
He believed technological advances meant para athletes were cutting down times and expected plenty of records to be broken over the coming years.
He hoped to be faster than Bolt within the next three years.
The 23-year-old Nelson athlete has ambitions to meet with some of the world’s largest companies, including Facebook, Google and Amazon, to develop the technology to become the quickest man in history. ‘‘I’m going to be the fastest man on the planet ever,’’ Malone told England’s Channel Four.
‘‘I’m going to design a unique pair of blades that are going to be called super blades.
‘‘Count on it, next three years, I’ll run faster than Usain Bolt.’’
Malone, who was born without fibula bones and had his legs amputated below the knee when he was 18 months old, has a personal best time in the T44 100m of 10.90 seconds, some way off Bolt’s 100m world record of 9.58 seconds.
‘‘I’m aiming for 9.4 seconds,’’ he told BBC Radio Live in another interview.
‘‘In the next three years I’ll run faster than Usain Bolt over 100m.’’
Malone was adamant he could beat Bolt’s record and believed the potential was unlimited with technology for para athletes.
‘‘It won’t be done in the Paralympics, and I’ve no intention of ever racing Usain Bolt or able-bodied people. It’s about racing against their time outside of the rules and regulations that limit technology. That’s what I’m focused on at the moment.
‘‘If you were me and you were bullied as a kid from five to 15, and you had this opportunity to use technology to do something that hasn’t been done before, you’d absolutely want to do it and that’s what I’m doing.’’
Technology is governed by International Paralympic Committee (IPC) rules. Changes are due to come into effect in January that would outlaw the blades used by Malone, which he disagreed with.
‘‘I’m not sure what the IPC are doing there,’’ he told BBC Radio Live.
‘‘It would be easier to give everyone access to the same technology.’’