Powell sets date for last days on the track
Published on Monday, June 18, 2007 Email To Friend Print Version
By Gary Smith
Caribbean Net News Sports Correspondent
Email: gary@caribbeannetnews.com
OSLO, Norway: It is still early days, with much to achieve on the track. However, world-renowned Jamaican sprinter Asafa Powell has already set a time for his last days on the track.
100m world record holder,
Asafa Powell. AFP PHOTO
“Until I’m 31, seven more years,” the 24-year-old said in reference to his retiring year. “I don’t want to run until I’m old like the athletes before. I don’t want to run until I am 36. I want to retire on top, on top of my game.”
The Commonwealth Games champion begins his quest for a possible repeat at winning athletics’ biggest prize money - a whopping $1 million dollar jackpot from the IAAF Golden League series, when he takes the field in the men’s 100m dash at the ExxonMobil Bislett Games in Bislett stadium.
Though still in his prime, the Jamaican realises that championships are rare, especially the Olympic, which only happens every four-years and he is hoping to take advantage of the time he has right now.
The Stephen Francis coach superstar hopes to produce the same form he had when running undefeated last year, when he challenges the world at this summer’s World Championships, as well as when he sets out to win his first Olympic gold medal in Beijing, next summer.
“This year and the next are very special to me,” Powell said. “The World Championships are this year. I need that. Next year are the Olympics. I need that.”
In 2005, after setting the world record in Athens, Powell was forced out of the world championships in Helsinki with a groin injury which left the sprinter very disappointed.
“I thought I could have been a strong challenger, if not the winner,” Powell said, adding that he disagreed with those who thought he was not a big-meeting performer after his failure at the Olympics.
“I don’t know why people are saying that, because Athens was the first time I’m running four rounds [of the 100m] in a big meet,” Powell said.
Powell opened the season with a 9.97 seconds clocking at the Artur Takac Memorial in Belgrade, before finishing third to American Xavier Cater at the Prefontaine Classic in Oregon, last Sunday.