The Big B

While Usain Bolt finishes his season with a bang, Kenyan 800-metre runner Pamela Jelimo pockets the $1 million jackpot

BRUSSELS: Usain Bolt seems to delight in leaving the blocks as late as possible and then letting his long legs play catch-up.

On Friday his 0.223 reaction to the gun was the slowest of the entire nine-man 100m field. He had also been the slowest from the start in Zürich a week ago. No matter, we were watching the triple Olympic champion from Beijing who took sprinting into a different orbit there with his three World records (100, 200m, 4x100).

By the midpoint Bolt was back in contention, and another few strides took him to equal first with race leader Asafa Powell. By the line of course Bolt was in the winning position, the clock stopping at 9.77 sec, the equal sixth fastest run of all-time. Powell was the next to finish, his time 9.83. The wind was minus 1.3m/s.

According to the IAAF media consultant Mark Butler advised us that the quickest anyone had run into such a breeze before was USA’s Leroy Burrell who dashed to 9.97sec in his Olympic semifinal at the 1992 Barcelona Olympics, which helps to put both Bolt and Powell’s runs into some focus.

Bolt’s season we are told is now at an end but Powell goes to Rieti, Italy, this Sunday (7) for another IAAF World Athletics Tour meeting having run his 9.72 PB in Lausanne on Tuesday. Last year, Powell set his then World record in Rieti.

Unlike most 18-year-old millionaires, Olympic champion Pamela Jelimo intends to invest wisely the Golden League $1 million jackpot she won on Friday. The Kenyan’s victory in the 800 metres, combined with Croatian high jumper Blanka Vlasic’s failure (who was also in line for the jackpot) to win in Brussels, saw Jelimo pocket the whole jackpot awarded to athletes who win their event in all six of the season’s meetings.

‘Not thinking of 400m’
Usain Bolt said on Friday he was not yet thinking about running the 400 metres or trying to break Michael Johnson’s nine year-old world record in the event. “I am not thinking about that (400 metres) for now,” Bolt said.

When asked how fast he could run if he competed at 400 and if he was capable of beating Johnson’s record which has stood since August 1999, Bolt replied, “I don’t think about those things. I leave that to my coaches.” Jamaica’s 400 metres coach Bertland Cameron has said the 22-year-old can break Johnson’s record of 43.18 seconds due to his size and strength.