Bolt bypasses Gay at Brussels
Treble world sprint champion Usain Bolt will not compete against
world silver medallist Tyson Gay in the 100m at the sixth and final
Golden League meet of the season on Friday.
Bolt set a world record time of 9.58 seconds to beat American Gay
into second in the Berlin worlds but has opted for the 200m - in which
he also set a new world record of 19.19sec - over the shorter event
here.
Gay, however, will be up against Bolt's Jamaican compatriot and
former world record holder Asafa Powell, who finished with world bronze
behind the American in the German capital last month.
"I've run a lot of 100m races this season, that's why in agreement
with my coach I decided to run the 200m in Brussels," said Bolt, who
will also likely run the 200m at the September 12-13 World Athletics
Final in Thessaloniki, Greece.
The 23-year-old ran 9.81sec in Zurich last week despite complaining
of being physically drained after his exploits in Berlin.
"Since the worlds, I've had two weeks to recover. I feel better now.
It should be better than in Zurich," he said of his race on a course
which features the same track as in Beijing's Bird's Nest Stadium, when
Bolt also set three world records in winning treble Olympic sprint gold.
Sprinting line-ups aside, there are only three athletes who remain on
course for netting the one-million-dollar Golden League jackpot.
Ethiopia's double world and Olympic 5000/10,000m champion Kenenisa
Bekele runs in the men's 5000m and looks a sure bet to win all six of
his races in the discipline. American Sanya Richards goes in the women's
400m and will hope for no upsets at the hands of British arch-rival
Christine Ohuruogu.
In the women's pole vault, all kinds of questions were asked after
the worlds when Yelena Isinbayeva failed to even medal in her bid for an
unprecedented third consecutive world gold in the event.
But the Russian rebounded from her non-medal showing in August with a
new world record of 5.06m in the Zurich Golden League meet last week to
re-establish the pecking order that has dominated the discipline since
her arrival on the scene.
There will be at least one bid on a world record come Friday.
Ethiopian Gelete Burka was elbowed into a fall in a last lap
collision with Spain's Natalia Rodriguez in the world 1500m but heads to
Belgium looking to better the 2000m record of Ireland's Sonia O'Sullivan
(5min 25.36sec).
Burka will have competition all the way in the form of Kenyan world
5000m champion Vivian Cheruiyot, who has a personal best at 2000m of
5:31.52 which she set this year when winning in Eugene in June.
American Jeremy Wariner has set himself a target of a meeting record
in the men's 400m.
"I would like to break the stadium record," said Wariner, who won
silver behind compatriot and Olympic champion LaShawn Merritt in Berlin.
The stadium record-holder is the legendary Michael Johnson, Wariner's
mentor who ran 44.06sec in 1998.
BRUSSELS, Sept 3, 2009 AFP |