Tuesday May 14, 2013
Bolt to race in Zurich
PARIS: Sprint legend Usain Bolt (pic) will compete at the Diamond League meeting in Zurich in August, the Jamaican athlete confirmed yesterday.
“I am excited to go back to Zurich. I love the electric atmosphere at the stadium and both the competition and the events during the week of the meeting are always extremely well-organised,” he said in a statement on the International Association of Athletics Federations (IAAF) website.
The fastest man on the planet and defending 100m and 200m champion from the Beijing and London Olympics said he will decide whether to run the longer or shorter sprint nearer the time of the meeting on Aug 29.
Bolt’s appearance will be his first outing after the World Athletics Championships in Moscow from Aug 10-18, where he will be hoping to regain the world title he lost to training partner Yohan Blake in Daegu, South Korea, in 2011.
Bolt won last year’s 200m at Zurich in 19.66. In 2009, he won the 100m in 9.8 and the previous year in 9.83. In 2007, he was second in the 200m in 20.19.
Meanwhile, Olympic 110m hurdles champion Aries Merritt said in an interview published yesterday that he believes his world record at the distance could soon be lowered.
“I think that the world record will come down below 12.8. Soon,” he was quoted as saying in French sports newspaper L’Equipe.
“Many of us can run 12.9 and a lot are working hard to break the record and and the magic number 12.8,” the 27-year-old American added.
Merritt shattered the previous record of 12.87 held by Cuba’s Dayron Robles at the final Diamond League meeting last September in Brussels.
Robles set the former world best in Ostrava, the Czech Republic, in 2008, 0.01secs quicker than China’s Liu Xiang in Lausanne, Switzerland, in 2006.
Merritt made his season’s debut in the Drake Relays on April 27 but was beaten by five hundredths of a second by Jamaica’s Andrew Riley, who won in 13.43.
World and Olympic champion Sally Pearson’s preparations for the world championships have been hampered by a hamstring injury that is likely to keep her out of racing in the 100m hurdles until July.
The Australian Associated Press reported Monday that Pearson hurt her hamstring while running a relay at a meet in Sri Lanka on the weekend, aggravating an injury that sidelined her for the Australian domestic season.
Australia’s head track coach Eric Hollingsworth says he expects that 26-year-old Pearson will be fit enough to try to defend her world title at Moscow in August.
Hollingsworth says: “If we can get her through a good set of races in July, there should be no problem from there on in.”— Agencies
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