“Personally, I feel I can go for the 200m record because there’s room for improvement to increase my speed”, said the Jamaican runner.
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It was ‘one of the roughest years, ‘ Bolt said, explaining how his back issue ‘has really deteriorated over the years’.
The track and field community will take a hit after Bolt’s departure from Olympic competition, but just like Michael Phelps in the pool, the world will at least get to enjoy him one more time in the Olympics.
World renowned sprinter, Usain Bolt is preparing to etch his name in sporting history by being the first athlete to win a 3 consecutive gold medal in the Olympics for the 100m, 200m and 4 x 100m event.
‘Especially at the start of previous year I noticed that injuries take a little bit more time to get back to where you want to be, ‘ Bolt said.
Bolt expects Rio to be his last Olympics, but he still dangles the possibility of a trip to Tokyo.
Still, Bolt is certain that he will be missed when he is gone.
Athletics’ ability to attract big audiences would be more hard without its global superstar.
“People always say to me, ‘Usain when you leave the sport, the sport is going to go down. There are a lot of athletes stepping up”.
Widespread corruption at the heart of the IAAF, involving Coe’s disgraced predecessor Lamine Diack, was linked to shocking levels of institutionalised doping in Russian Federation, one of track and field’s powerhouses.
The Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS) rejected a wider appeal by 67 track and field athletes including treble Olympic gold-chasing pole vault tsarina Yelena Isinbayeva, world 110m hurdles champion Sergey Shubenkov and world high jump champion Mariya Kuchina. Many sports would really like to be discussing a Bolt in their ranks: “they don’t and they can’t”, said IAAF president Sebastian Coe who still believes that other track stars deserve the Rio spotlight.
Unless he decides to continue, Bolt’s glory era is due to end after the 2017 World Championships in London.
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“No, I don’t personally think so”, he replied when asked if his record-breaking days were behind him.
