THE world’s fastest man, Usain Bolt, now has one of the world’s fastest tracks to train on.

German track manufacturers, BSW Regupol, which constructed the blue track where Bolt set 100m and 200m world records of 9.58 and 19.19 seconds at the World Championships in Berlin, Germany last summer, yesterday handed over a similar track to the Jamaican superstar on the ground of the University of the West Indies (UWI).

The 400-metre track, which was made possible by Regupol and PUMA on lands contributed by UWI, was completed within 161 days after ground was broken for the project on November 14.

Bolt was full of praise for the BSW Regupol team, who initially offered him a four-lane 150-metre portion of the Berlin track last summer.

“It’s just wonderful to know that I’ll always have a track to train on and I know my coach is happy about that because we won’t have to worry about the National Stadium being rented out and we have to train on the grass or do some Plyometric drills and nothing too hard, so I know he’s happy,” Bolt said during a two-hour long ceremony at the UWI Bowl yesterday.

“This track is where I set my last two world records, which were very fast. Now I’m going to train on it (similar surface), so I’m just imagining what the possibilities are,” added the triple Olympic and World Championships gold medallist.

Principal and CEO of BSW Regupol Ulf Poeppe, who has been running the company for the past 21 years, indicated that the track will assist Jamaica to continue its dominance of world sprinting, similar to the way Brazil dominate football.

“This running track is the most modern and sophisticated piece of track technology that one can possible get nowadays. From a technical stand-point your new running track is almost an exact copy of the track in the Berlin Olympic Stadium and certainly one of the finest pieces of workmanship of building sports facilities,” Poeppe said, noting that he’s pleased that the track will be the training ground for a running super power.

Racers head coach Glen Mills, who was instrumental in getting the track laid at UWI, hopes to deliver a few more world record performances with the help of the new state-of-the-art IAAF certified track.

“To the BSW Regupol family, we owe you a tremendous debt and we hope that another world record will repay all of that,” Mills said. “To all the Racers athletes and coaches, this is our home, let us take the greatest care of it and make the best use of it to dazzle the world with lightening speed,” the coached added.

Principal of the UWI, Professor Gordon Shirley told Sporting World that the completed Regupol track forms a major section of the University’s plans to become the top sporting facility in the Caribbean.

“This is a big piece of what we want to do at this location. It’s a first-rate running track… just to the north of here we have the JFF Academy, which is going in and just beyond that we are going to have the Caribbean Sports Medicine Institute,” Professor Shirley said.

“We are also hoping to build a large multipurpose indoor facility, which will allow us to have all the court games, such as basketball, volleyball, netball and so on. We have already expanded the swimming pool. We have put in the beach volleyball facilities, we are upgrading the cricket pitch and we are going to upgrade football fields which are used by premier league club August Town,” added the UWI principal.

Sports Development Director at the UWI, Olympic 200m silver medallist Grace Jackson, who has been with the University for 11 years, said they will be seeking to raise funds to erect spectator stands in time for track meets next season.

“We now can start doing the planning for track meets being held here… without supporting facilities, obviously we can’t get started right away, but my job now becomes even tougher because I now have to get investors to come in and participate in the building of the spectator stands,” Jackson said.

Initially, the track will be utilised by athletes from UWI, Racers Track Club and IAAF High Performance Training Centre.

Last November, a 20-year agreement was signed by UWI’s principal, Professor Gordon Shirley and president of the Racers Track Club, Glen Mills, as the institution moves to twin sporting excellence with science to establish itself as the premier facilitator of sports development in the region.