Usain Bolt Wants to Dominate Until 2016
“Look who’s back!” screamed a Diamond League poster online featuring an imposing frontal photo of Usain Bolt emerging into the spotlight. The world fastest man had arrived in Rome, where he’s booked to compete tomorrow, June 6, at the 33rd edition of the Golden Gala, dedicated this year to Pietro Mennea, the Italian sprinter who won the 200m Olympic title at the Moscow 1980 Games and held the 200m world record that stood for 17 years. Mennea died in March this year.
According to a Diamond League release, Bolt was a little tired, after a long flight from Jamaica via London. The two-time triple Olympic gold medalist and world record holder will run the 100m on the Olympic Stadium track for the third consecutive year. He won both races, clocking 9.76 at last year’s meet.
The 100m field in Rome includes London Olympic bronze medalist Justin Gatlin and his American teammate Michael Rodgers, both of whom have gone under 10 seconds this year while Bolt has not. Kim Collins, the 2003 World champion from St. Kitts and Nevis, is also in the line-up.
At a pre-meet press conference June 4 exclusively with Bolt, which lasted just over 30 minutes, he said he was feeling great and that he has been doing a lot of work on his speed endurance, as well as doing a few starts for the past couple of weeks; so everything is coming together. “Maybe further down in the season I will be more focused on getting my speed up,” he said. “[But] my coach will decide what I need to do by watching all my races. Until then, I cannot tell what we’ll be working on.
“My coach has me in good shape, so I’m just looking forward to going out there and competing at my best,” he said in response to questions about how he felt and his expectations of the Golden Gala.
Bolt, who looked quite relaxed in front of a battery of journalists and flashing camera lights, also noted that after his only 100m race this season a month ago in Cayman, in which he ran a relatively slow time of 10.09secs, he and his coach reviewed everything, figured what went wrong and worked on it. After tomorrow, he has one remaining race (200m) in Oslo next week before competing at the June 20 to 23 Jamaica World Championships Trials. Unlike his status in the 200m, Bolt does not have an automatic spot in the 100m at Moscow and must, therefore, compete to make the team for that event.
On the matter of US sprinter Justin Gatlin running well and talking a lot, Bolt said Gatlin has proven this season that he is getting into great shape; however, he (Bolt) was focused on getting everything together for Worlds and was not worried about any one athlete. Proving himself as the best at championships, he pointed out, was more important to him than winning “one-off” races.
In addressing the recent flack he got by some anti-drug organizations who criticized him for posting on Twitter a picture with a t-shirt they said appeared to be promoting the use of cannabis, Bolt dismissed the issue as the media trying to “pick something out of nothing” to get headlines, explaining that a friend with a clothing line had used the picture in question.
Dismisses Criticisms
“Everybody names their clothing line off catchy things,” he said. “It was nothing; it was just a name. For me it was just whatever; I am not going to be stressed over that because I know who I am, and I know who I represent over the years. I’ve moved past that already.
The 26-yr-old Bolt later chose not to identify any particular Jamaican in his training camp whom he believed could break out soon. He foresees, however, that in a couple of years a lot more talent will coming out of Jamaica, but he will still be beating all of them.
“I think I’ve accomplished all my dreams, but I have pretty much four more years in the sport,” he said. “So now it’s all about dominating for those years. I’m looking forward to the next Olympics to doing something that’s never been done before.”
That’s one of his biggest goals, she said. “It’s going to take hard work, but I really look forward to the competition because it drives me and helps the sport. I am going to do as much as possible to enjoy it and help develop the sport over the years.”