KINGSTON — Usain Bolt will have to finish in the top three in the 100 metres at Jamaica’s National Senior Trials on Friday June 21 to book his place in the World Championship team.
Daily Mail
Perhaps he is human, after all.
The six-time Olympic champion has been overlooked for a wildcard in the shorter sprint in favour of 2011 world champion and training partner Yohan Blake, who took the title in Daegu, South Korea two years ago following Bolt’s disqualification after a false start.
Bolt will, therefore, have to run heats next Thursday and contest a semi-final and final on the blue track of Jamaica’s National Stadium in Kingston the following day; a stadium built in 1962 that holds 35 000 people paying 500 Jamaican dollars (£3,20) to wear their national colours and make deafening noise on the bleachers or $2 000 (£12,80) to sit in the main stand.
The 26-year-old must finish in the top three to guarantee selection for August’s World Championships in Moscow in the individual 100m and Jamaica’s 4x100m relay team. Despite a below-par start to the season, Bolt has already twice run comfortably inside the ‘A’ qualifying standard of 10,15 seconds.
New rules introduced by the IAAF, athletics’ world governing body, last year give defending world champions and winners of the prestigious Diamond League events automatic entry into the World Championships. But if a nation has two eligible candidates, as Jamaica does in both the 100m and 200m, then the country’s governing body has a tricky decision to make.
Bolt won the 100m Diamond League title, but must defer to Blake (23) over the straight sprint. In turn, Nickel Ashmeade, the 2012 200m Diamond League winner, will see Bolt take the only automatic 200m spot because he is the reigning world champion over the longer distance.
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Meanwhile, Bolt bounced back from a shock 100m defeat in Rome to ease to victory in the 200m at the Oslo Diamond League on Thursday. The Jamaican’s first outing over his favoured event was disrupted when Churundy Martina false started.
On the restart, Bolt got out of the blocks well before pulling away in the final 50 metres to win in 19,79 seconds — the world’s fastest time this year.
