Latest update January 20th, 2025 4:00 AM
Bolt breezes to victory in Diamond League 200m
…but why is he driving around in a racing car?
So much for the suggestions Usain Bolt is ‘past it’, then. The Jamaican responded to his 100 metres defeat by Justin Gatlin in Rome last week by setting a stadium record as he dominated the 200m in Oslo last night.
Bolt ran 19.79 seconds at the Bislett Stadium, breaking Frankie Fredericks’ 17-year-old record by three hundredths of the second and becoming the first man this year to dip under 20 seconds.
The Race – Reaching for the line: Bolt will be happy to make up for his defeat at the hands of Justin Gatlin last time out.
Before the event began he was introduced to the crowd in a racing car as he zoomed around the track waving to the spectators. The car is an example from the series that will begin next season known as Formula E, where cars look like their Formula 1 counterparts but will be run on electricity.
He said it wanted the record before his race and he duly claimed it, accelerating off the bend from lane six to leave Norway’s Jaysuma Saidy Noure and Great Britain’s James Ellington in his wake.
A telling glance at the clock and Bolt’s determination to run through the line showed just how much he wanted it. He said: ‘I came out here and I ran hard and I went as fast as I can, so I’m happy.
‘All I have to do is go home and work on everything else and go a bit faster. ‘I’m going to show the world I’m the No1 and I’m the legend that I am.’
The two other British athletes in the Diamond League race – David Bolarinwa and Daniel Talbot – finished fifth and sixth respectively after Holland’s Martina Churandy was disqualified for a false start.
And so on to Jamaica’s National Senior Trials in Kingston in a week’s time, where Bolt must finish in the top three to guarantee his place in the 100m at the World Championships in August.
He drove around the track in the racing car before the competition and will perform a DJ set at an after-party, but will receive no special treatment from his own federation.
Elsewhere last night, Great Britain’s Tiffany Porter won the 100m hurdles in 12.76 seconds and Shara Proctor won the long jump with her first-round effort of 6.89 metres. Perri Shakes-Drayton came second in the 400m hurdles, running 54.03secs behind Olympic bronze medallist Zuzana Hejnova.
The 24-year-old ran nearly two seconds quicker than in her disappointing seventh-place finish in Eugene two weeks ago – a race Hejnova won comfortably – and vowed to beat the Czech athlete next time out.
Shakes-Drayton added: ‘I’m coming (good). The world championships – I’m coming. I’m really pleased with that.’ Anyika Onuora, a 200m specialist, also enjoyed success over a lap of the track, winning the 400m national event in 52.11secs on her debut at the distance.
Before the action got underway, the ‘Three Musketeers’ of British middle-distance running – Sebastian Coe, Steve Ovett and Steve Cram – were reunited in the stadium in which they broke seven world records between them.
The Dream Mile has traditionally been the marquee event at this meeting and all three athletes claimed world records over the distance in Oslo: Coe in 1979, Ovett a year later and Cram in 1985 with three minutes 46.32 secs. Djibouti’s Ayanleh Souleiman’s winning time last night, incidentally, was 3mins 50.53secs.
Lord Coe said: ‘When you got invited to Oslo you knew you had come of age in the sport. I think I speak for all of us when I say this is a very special stadium for us.’
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