Diamond rush! Bolt, Fraser lead J’can charge
OLYMPIC and World champions Usain Bolt and Shelly-Ann Fraser will head 13 Jamaicans set to feature on the track for the Lausanne Diamond League in Switzerland today.
The 23-year-old Bolt, who switched from the 200 to the 100-metres, event because of a strained Achilles tendon, told reporters at a press conference in Lausanne yesterday that his doctor advised him “to avoid running the curves until 100 per cent fit”.
Compatriot Ainsley Waugh, Antiguan Brendan Christian, Churandy Martina of the Netherland Antilles, Americans J-Mee Samuels and Leroy Dixon will also compete in the 100m.
Meanwhile Bolt, the 100m and 200m world record-older, has hinted at trying new events after the 2012 Olympic Games, including the long jump, and put up his spikes by the 2016 Olympic Games in Rio de Janiero, Brazil.
“I’m not going to be one of those athletes who go on to do track and field until they’re 36. If I win in London (2012), then I’ll probably have to try something else because people will probably be tired of seeing me,” Bolt added.
The Jamaican ambassador also pointed out that the rest of his 200m season may be in jeopardy, after a tightness in his Achilles tendon in late May when running the 300m in Ostrava.
“I have no idea (when the tendon will get better), but the doctor said in four weeks I should be okay,” the 6ft-5in Bolt added.
Fraser will also run the 100m, facing countrywomen Sheri-Ann Brooks and Sherone Simpson, and archrivals Americans Carmelita Jeter and LaShauntea Moore. Bahamians Debbie Ferguson McKenzie and Chandra Sturrup will also run the short dash.
Waugh will run the 200m as well while Jermaine Gonzales, who clocked a personal best 44.79 seconds on June 12, will face his biggest competition when he goes up against World Championship silver and bronze medallist respectively, American Jeremy Wariner and Trinidadian Renny Quow.
Other Jamaicans competing are Dwight Thomas (110m hurdles); Isa Phillips (400m); World Championship silver medallist Shericka Williams, Jamaican champion Novlene Williams-Mills, and Rosemarie Whyte in the 400m; and Delloreen Ennis-London and Vonette Dixon in the 100m hurdles.
