“It means I’m definitely on the right track”, Bolt said.
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“He was supposed to slow down”.
The Jamaican sprint great eased down over the last 50m of his semi-final but still managed to clock 19.78s, narrowly beating Canada’s Andre de Grasse.
“I’m really happy with two medals but my race today could have been better”, he said.
He actually completed the square puzzle faster than Usain Bolt ran his gold medal winning 100m at Rio 2016 on Sunday (August 14).
Bolt finished in 19.78 sec, the fastest time of the year.
The big surprise was that Gatlin, who has been struggling with an ankle injury all year, failed to qualify for the final having been run out of his heat in fourth.
“I definitely think I can try for the world record”, said the sprinter, whose current record in the 200 stands at 19.19 seconds. “It’s executing right, run the corner efficiently and come in the straight and just run the ideal race”. As the other guys got into their running I didn’t.
Those that were awake / in a more suitable time zone to watch it particularly enjoyed it, with many commenting on the bromance between Bolt and his Canadian rival. “I’ll be out there rubbing his shoulders, with a towel on him, like, ‘All right Rocky, get yourself ready, ‘” Gatlin said, doing his best impression of Burgess Meredith’s trainer character in the “Rocky” movies. He set it in 2009 at world championships, breaking the mark he’d previously set the year before (19.30) when he made his debut in Beijing. “I will be hoping for lane six, or seven maybe, to be able to run as smooth as I can”. “But that’s a good thing I suppose that I’m not satisfied with that and I will go and push on”. American LaShawn Merritt, who, like Gatlin, has served a doping suspension, was the only other athlete under 20 seconds and he looked strong and comfortable going into Thursday’s final.
Although this was his best time of the season so far, once again there was a sense amongst viewers that Bolt was perhaps holding something back.
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“To be honest I think I had a really good start but then nearly relaxed too much round the bend”.
