Usain Bolt was good enough to win even if he didn’t flash his world-record breaking form in the 100m at the Festival of Excellence on Thursday.
The Olympic champion from Jamaica finished in 10.00 seconds under a dark sky and in a steady downpour at University of Toronto’s Varsity Stadium.
“It felt good,” Bolt said. “I think I should have done a little better. For me, it’s all right. I got through it injury-free, so that’s a good thing.”
PHOTO: AP
The US’ Shawn Crawford was second in 10.25, while Ivory Williams finished third in 10.28. Bernard Williams was fourth, crossing the line in 10.47.
Crawford, who won gold in the 200m at the 2004 Athens Olympics, finished second to Bolt in the 200m in Beijing. Williams won gold in the 4x100m relay at the 2000 Sydney Olympics.
Bolt won three golds in Beijing last year.
He said on Thursday he held back a little because of the cool and damp conditions. Temperatures were below 20˚C.
“That’s the right thing to do,” Bolt said. “You’ve got to be very careful because you have a lot of running to do and you can’t manage to get injured at this time of the season.”
Bolt’s most recent race was also in wet weather. In May, running on a temporary street track in Manchester, England, he ran the world’s fastest 150m in 14.35 seconds, breaking Canadian Donovan Bailey’s 12-year-old record of 14.99 in the seldom-run distance.
Thursday’s race was delayed by two false starts, with Jamaican Marvin Anderson disqualified on the second.
This was Bolt’s second race since a car accident in April, when he crashed his car into a ditch along a highway. Bolt required surgery on his left foot after stepping onto thorns while getting out of the wreckage.
Earlier in the meet, reigning Olympic 400m champion LaShawn Merritt cruised to victory in a time of 44.86.
The Festival of Excellence featured 50 Olympians, but Bolt was the headliner, reportedly earning more than C$250,000 (US$225,570) for his appearance in front of 5,835 fans.
The US’ Bryan Clay, gold medal winner in the decathlon in Beijing, competed in a three-event format including pole vault, 100m hurdles and the 400m. Clay won the event over Jake Arnold of the US, scoring 2,739 points.
In the women’s 100m hurdles, Canadian Priscilla Lopes-Schliep, the bronze medal winner at the Beijing Olympics, narrowly beat out Canadian rival Perdita Felicien, crossing the line in 12.96 seconds.
Juventus on Sunday stopped Inter from replacing SSC Napoli at the top of Serie A by beating their fierce rivals 1-0 and moving into the UEFA Champions League positions. Francisco Conceicao made sure that Napoli would stay two points ahead of reigning champions Inter by classily tucking home the winning goal 16 minutes before the end of an entertaining contest in Turin. Portugal attacker Conceicao netted his fourth goal of the season in all competitions after brilliant work from Randal Kolo Muani to give Juve a third straight league win. Juve are in fourth place on 46 points, ahead on goal-difference from SS
The Chinese Professional Baseball League (CPBL) is considering reducing its pitch clock by two seconds to help players better adjust to the rules applied at the World Baseball Classic (WBC). The proposal aims to shorten the pitch timer from 25 seconds to 23 seconds with the bases empty, and from 20 seconds to 18 seconds with runners on base. Currently, the WBC mandates that pitchers deliver a pitch every 18 seconds with the bases empty and 15 seconds with runners on base. The issue was raised during a pre-season CPBL managers’ meeting on Tuesday by Rakuten Monkeys bench and batting
BELGIANS ADVANCE: Club Brugge gave Atalanta a lesson in efficiency, as Gian Piero Gasperini’s team had 29 efforts at goal, compared with seven from the visitors Seldom has a player’s sending off had such an influence on a game. AC Milan was to left rue Theo Hernandez’s second yellow card — for diving — as Feyenoord advanced to the UEFA Champions League last 16 at the former European champion’s expense with a 1-1 draw in the second leg of their playoff on Tuesday, giving the Dutch team a 2-1 win on aggregate. Bayern Munich, Club Brugge and Benfica also won their playoffs, eliminating Celtic, UEFA Europa League winner Atalanta BC and French team AS Monaco respectively. “In soccer everything changes in a second,” said Milan forward
Starting with three fights in the first nine seconds and ending with a celebration and a spot in the 4 Nations Face-Off final, the US on Saturday delivered exactly what Matthew Tkachuk hoped for by beating Canada. “We needed to send a message,” Tkachuk said. “The message we wanted to send is ‘It’s our time.’” Tkachuk fought Brandon Hagel off the opening faceoff, brother Brady tussled with Sam Bennett the next time the puck dropped, J.T. Miller dropped the gloves with Colton Parayko next and the Americans followed those fisticuffs with a 3-1 victory over their biggest rival. “That was one of the
RSS