'I'm still playing catch-up after car accident' says Bolt

Published on Tuesday 21 July 2009 22:59

TRIPLE Olympic champion Usain Bolt admits he is still playing catch-up as he prepares for this weekend's Aviva London Grand Prix.

The 22-year-old had his training disrupted after he wrote off his high-performance BMW in Jamaica in April. He was not seriously injured but had to have thorns removed from his left foot and he believes he is still feeling the effects of that setback.

Bolt, who won the 100 metres, 200m and was part of the victorious Jamaican 4x100m relay team in Beijing, is hardly struggling for form, running 9.79 seconds to win in Paris last week, only 0.1secs outside his world record.

That was achieved despite a poor start and bad weather in the French capital but, speaking in London yesterday, he said: "I'm at about 85 per cent at the moment. I need to do some work on my speed endurance because I wasn't able to do much on that after my car accident.

"I had thorns in my foot, which meant I couldn't run round the bends so that means my speed endurance is quite low. I could only do 80, 100 and 110m sprints instead of 200m. I lost about a month of training so I have a lot of catching up to do."

Bolt will race against fellow Jamaican and former world-record holder Asafa Powell and Britain's Simeon Williamson at Crystal Palace, but will only face American Tyson Gay in the 4x100m relay. Reigning world champion Gay set the fastest time in the world this year in Rome with a run of 9.77secs, a week before Bolt's run in Paris, but will run the 200m at the weekend.

"A rivalry is always good and I always look forward to competing against Gay," added Bolt. "Everybody is stepping it up and there's a lot of good running going on round the circuit. I think of everybody as a rival because you never know who is going to pop up on the day."

This weekend's races will be his last before the World Championships in Berlin next month and Bolt is intent on adding the world titles to his Olympic medal haul. And the 22-year-old Jamaican believes he can fulfil his coach's prediction that he can lower his own 100m world record from 9.69 to 9.54 seconds.

"The worlds is very important to me because it's also a big championship, I would definitely like to go there and win," Bolt said. "It's going to be hard because I think Tyson is going to be keen to defend his titles so it should be interesting. The 100m should be all right but the 200m will be more challenging if I don't get into the shape I want to be. Somewhere down the line me and my coach will decide if we should challenge the 400m but right now all the focus is on 100 and 200 because, for me, we should continue dominating those if possible."

Bolt's coach, Glen Mills, claimed in Beijing that Bolt could run 9.54secs for the 100m, a reasonable suggestion given the ease with which he ran 9.69s with his shoelace untied.

"My coach said after the Olympics I could run 9.54 so I think I could get there because anything my coach said I can do, I've done so far," added Bolt. "He's seen my potential and said I'm going to do great things."

Bolt admits his superstar status can sometimes be difficult to handle. But he admits the perks – such as training with Manchester United – make up for the extra attention. "There's been a lot more media attention, a lot more people coming up to me. It's been a little bit busy but okay," he added. "I don't go out much, I stay in and play video games. There is not much downside but sometimes you just want to be left alone to chill out."