Sunday, 22 February 2009

Bolt cruises to a 45.54 win in Kingston

Usain Bolt cruises to a 45.54 400m victory at National Stadium in Kingston  (SportingEagle)

Usain Bolt cruises to a 45.54 400m victory at National Stadium in Kingston (SportingEagle)

Kingston, Jamaica - Olympic sprint sensation, Jamaican Usain Bolt, continued his early season preparation with another comfortable 400m victory at National Stadium.

Running out of lane five in the timed-final 400m at The University of West Indies Invitational, Bolt won in 45.54sec, an improvement on the 46.35 he ran last weekend.

Despite the low-key nature of Saturday's meeting, more than 3000 fans gave a rousing welcome to Bolt, who set World records at the Olympics in winning the 100m (9.69) and 200m (19.30) before helping Jamaica to 4x100m Relay gold in 37.10.

Bolt's coach Glen Mills was pleased his the star athlete performance, saying, "It's part of his training, so we expect him to improve every week."

"What you saw is a big difference from last week, but that was expected, each week he will get better and better, until we get right where we want to be."

"Right now we are focusing on getting ready for our first international competition, which is in May, so we still have a lot of work to do to get him back in the shape we want him to be," he added.

Last week, Bolt said that he was behind in his season preparations compared to last year, in part because of travel and distractions as a result of his Olympic heroics in August.

Mills said Bolt's first real test could be the Jamaica International Invitational, an IAAF Area Permit meet, on 2 May, also at the National Stadium. He, however, is unable to say what event Bolt will run, as this will depend heavily on the competition.

"We want to make sure we have some kind of competition," said Mills as to the reason why a decision has not yet been confirmed.

In the men's 200m, Yohan Blake, the 100m bronze medallist from the 2006 World Junior Championships in Beijing, took top honours in 20.60.

Yeon Kyung Lee, winner of the women's 100m Hurdles, headlined several Korean athletes, training at the UWI Mona campus in Kingston, competed at the meet.

Anthony Foster for the IAAF

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