KINGSTON // Olympic sprint champion Usain Bolt sounded a strong warning to his rivals for the Rio Games by winning the 100 metres at the Racers Grand Prix in Kingston in 9.88 seconds on Saturday after recovering from a stumble.
Bolt clocked the second fastest time of the year behind Frenchman Jimmy Vicaut’s 9.86 and despite the bad start the six-time Olympic champion caught up with the strong field, which included Yohan Blake and Asafa Powell, at 60 metres with time to ease up in the last five metres.
“I’m happy I got a season best. It was not a perfect race but I was able to win,” Bolt said after the race.
Nickel Ashmeade and Blake were second and third respectively in 9.94, while Powell finished fourth in 9.98 seconds.
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“I almost fall over ... all I was trying to control it but it’s just one of those things it comes, it goes,” Bolt said.
“I think I dragged my foot too hard so it kind of propelled me forward and then I just tried to correct myself, not try to panic and just make my way through.”
Bolt said his time will put him in a good place ahead of Jamaica’s trials, starting June 30.
“It means that I’m in very good nick. As I said the more I run the faster I’ll get, the smoother my running will become and take it from there,” he said.
Two-time defending Olympic champion Shelly-Ann Fraser Pryce won the women’s race in 11.09 ahead of world indoor champion Barbara Pierre of the United States who crossed in 11.11.
American Johnny Dutch won the men’s 400m hurdles in a new world leading time of 48.10 seconds bettering his own 48.36.
Another American, David Oliver, clocked 13.09 to win the 110m hurdles ahead of Jamaican Deuce Carter.
Miguel Francis of Antigua won the 200m in 19.88 beating Julian Forte who clocked 20.18.
Meanwhile Bolt has told Reuters he would have no problem giving back one of his six Olympic gold medals if a Jamaican relay teammate is confirmed to have failed a drugs test.
Nesta Carter, who helped the 4x100 team to Olympic and world championship titles, returned a doping violation for the banned stimulant methylhexanamine in a re-test of 454 samples from the Beijing Games, sources familiar with the case have told Reuters.
Carter’s “B” sample also came back positive, they said.
Jamaica’s Olympic association has confirmed it received notification from the International Olympic Committee (IOC) that one of its competitors had returned an adverse analytical result, but it has not named the athlete.
Neither Carter nor his agent have responded to repeated requests for comment on the positive test.
“It’s heartbreaking because over the years you’ve worked hard to accumulate gold medals and work hard to be a champion ... but it’s just one of those things,” Bolt told Reuters late on Saturday.
“Things happen in life, so when it’s confirmed or whatever, if I need to give back my gold medal I’d have to give it back, it’s not a problem for me.”
First-leg specialist Carter has been a vital member of Jamaica’s dominant squad, helping the Caribbean island win gold medals at the 2008 and 2012 Olympics and the 2011, 2013 and 2015 world championships.
Methylhexanamine has been on the World Anti-Doping Agency (Wada) Code prohibited list since 2004 although it was reclassified on the 2011 list as a “specified substance”.
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