We’re close to speed limit - Usain Bolt
Mike Hurst
From: The Daily Telegraph
April 26, 2010 12:00AM
Quick … Usain Bolt. Source: AFP
USAIN Bolt yesterday predicted the 100m would eventually be locked at 9.4sec and he publicly pledged to have his name forever beside the unbreakable world record.
“Anything is possible,” Bolt told The Daily Telegraph. “9.4 is where I think the record will stop and I hope I will be the one to do that 9.4.”
Bolt, 23, holds the world records for the 100m (9.58sec) and 200m (19.19sec) and was part of the Jamaican team that set the 4x100m relay world record (37.10sec).
Yesterday in front of more than 54,000 in the 116th annual Penn Relays in Philadelphia, he cruised elegantly to an astonishing split time of 8.79sec in anchoring his club team to victory over a US national team.
It is one of the fastest flying-start 100m times ever run, second only to Asafa Powell, who ran 8.73sec when he anchored Jamaica’s winning 4x100m relay team at last year’s world championships in Berlin.
Carl Lewis also recorded 8.85sec when he anchored the US team to gold at the 1992 Barcelona Olympics and Bob Hayes is credited with 8.74sec when he anchored the US at the 1964 Olympics. Russian timing suggests 9.0 was closer to the truth.
But relay splits need to be accepted with a grain of salt. Not so Bolt’s performances from the blocks.
But he said: “The showdowns on the Diamond League are very important because there are no championships and in a championship year the guys don’t really compete against each other very much.”
Not a championship year? That will disappoint a billion Indians.
The new Diamond League comprises 14 one-day meets across Asia, Europe, the Middle East and the US. The circuit, which starts in Doha on May 14, replaces the Golden League, which had only six meets - all of them contested in Europe.
Bolt said he had trained hard “as always”, although it was “not as intense” as in the championship years. He is not looking to run a fast time this year, saving that for next year’s world championships in Daegu, South Korea, and then the 2012 Olympics in London.
“I want to get through easy as possible this year and stay unbeaten, but if I have to run fast to win I definitely will,” Bolt said.
“But if Tyson Gay and Asafa Powell [history’s second and third fastest 100m men] are in the race, definitely we will be pushing the world record. If they are in the race, I know it’s going to be fierce.”
Only the late-season Diamond League meet in Brussels has secured the three big guns for a 100m showdown.
Asked where he thought he could still find improvement in his world record 100m, Bolt said: "For me, it’s definitely my first 30m.
"I’m getting it down but I definitely need to work on it. My start, my execution to the 30m, my acceleration. And I’ve got to stop looking around, maybe. There are little things. My coach may see other things, but that’s what I see.
“Everybody just has one thing they’re good at and now I train hard because my coach says everybody on the circuit has talent, so I have to work hard to harness that talent. So, for me, it’s talent and I work hard.”