Bolt and the 400m dilemma
BY KAYON RAYNOR Senior Observer staff reporter raynork@jamaicaobserver.com
Monday, March 01, 2010
A 43.58-second clocking/split by world 100m and 200m record holder Usain Bolt on the anchor leg of the Racers Lions 4x400 metres team at Saturday’s 34th Gibson Relays, has reignited calls for the Jamaican sprint king to contest the 400m.
After collecting the baton some 20 metres behind and in fourth position, the triple Olympic and World Championships gold medallist returned the super time to close the gap to within five metres on leader Nicholas Maitland.
Maitland’s University of Technology team won the event in a world-leading 3:05.33, just 44 hundredths of a second ahead of Bolt’s Racers Lions team, which stopped the clock at 3:05.77 seconds. The only Jamaicans with sub-44 seconds 400-relay splits are Davian Clarke (43.51), Roxbert Martin (43.81), and Greg Haughton (43.88), who are all retired.
Many track and field aficionados including American Michael Johnson, who holds the 400m world record of 43.18secs, have long proposed that Bolt, who established world records of 9.58 and 19.19 in the 100m and 200m, respectively, should attempt the quarter-mile.
“There has never been anyone who’s held the world records at 100, 200 and 400 metres and he (Bolt) has the potential to do that,” Johnson said on a visit to Jamaica in December.
“I think we can say that records will be broken, but I would venture to say that nobody is ever going to hold the world records at 100, 200 and 400 again if he (Bolt) does it. I don’t think there will ever be a person that could do that,” added Johnson, who was in Jamaica to produce a one-hour documentary on Bolt to be aired on the BBC.
Bolt’s career best over the 400m is 45.28secs, attained in 2007. The 23-yearold sprinter who is coached by Glen Mills opened his 2010 season by clocking 45.87secs in the event on February 14.
A month prior to January 14, the three-time world 100m world champion and former world record holder American Maurice Greene also said he believed Bolt has what it takes to break Johnson’s 400m record.
“Usain will probably go down as the ultimate sprinter ’cause his 100m is going to get faster, his 200m is going to get faster and if he decides to run the 400, he will shatter that record too,” Greene said at the time.
“He will shatter that (400m) record also, but that’s only if he wants to do it,” the five-time world champion reasoned.
Bolt, who currently only runs the 400m in early season as part of his stamina work for the 200m, has always said that he will only seriously consider attempting the 400m following the defense of his 100m and 200m titles at the London Olympics in 2012.
“The 400 I don’t want to do, but I think I’ll do it in the future because my coach can be very convincing. And he’ll find some argument for me to do it,” Bolt told journalist last September. “I think I would be pretty good (at it) as I have tried it when I was young, just messing around,” he added.