TRIPLE Olympic gold medallist and world-record holder Usain Bolt could have run the 100 metres in 9.52 seconds if he had not slowed to celebrate, according to his coach.
Glen Mills said Bolt, who electrified Beijing with his sprint victories, was at the start of his 100m career and would peak only in about two years' time.
"If he had continued, the slowest he would have run would have been 9.52," Mills said ah
ead of tomorrow's Weltklasse athletics meeting in Zurich, where Bolt is due to run the 100. "This is his first year of running the 100 metres. In two more years he should be peaking at this distance and by then I am certain he will be down to there."
Bolt set a world record of 9.69 seconds in the 100, and was so far ahead of the field that he slowed before the end to celebrate.
Bolt then broke Michael Johnson's 12-year-old mark in the 200m and added a third gold by contributing to a world record for Jamaica in the 4x100m relay.
Tomorrow Bolt will face the two men who won medals behind him in Beijing, Richard Thompson of Trinidad & Tobago and American Walter Dix.
Other Beijing winners on show in Zurich include women's pole vault champion Yelena Isinbayeva and Kenenisa Bekele of Ethiopia, who won the men's 5,000 and 10,000 metres.
"I've had some sleep since I've been here so I'm not tired. I'm trying to get my blood pumping again," Bolt said.
He declined to speculate on what time he might run in Switzerland tomorrow though.
"I don't think you can really set another goal after doing that at the Olympics," said Bolt, who turned 22 the day after his 200 Beijing win. "I'm just trying to get to the end of the season, injury free, and go home and enjoy myself."
The full article contains 323 words and appears in The Scotsman newspaper.
