Usain Bolt bid an emotional farewell to competitive racing in Jamaica on Saturday night as he won his final race on home soil.
Clocking 10.03 to claim 100m victory at the Racers Grand Prix in Kingston, in a race dubbed ‘Salute to a Legend’, he beat fellow Jamaicans Jevaughn Minzie with 10.15 and Nickel Ashmeade with 10.18.
Bolt may have a world record best of 9.58, but on Saturday evening it was all about putting on a winning show to thank his home fans back in the National Stadium where he won the world junior 200m title as a 15-year-old and has experienced some of his great success since.
The 11-time world gold medallist is set to retire after this summer’s IAAF World Championships in London. Bolt’s win in Kingston on Saturday came despite him having missed a couple of weeks of training following the death of his friend Germaine Mason, who won Olympic high jump silver for Great Britain in 2008.
“Thank you Jamaica,” Bolt wrote in a message on Twitter after the race.
Also among the winners at the Racers Grand Prix meeting were Yohan Blake, as he ran 9.97 to beat Akani Simbine’s 10.00 in an earlier 100m race, and Wayde van Niekerk, who smashed the South African 200m record with his time of 19.84.
Allyson Felix won the 400m in 50.52 and Shamier Little won the 400m hurdles from Dalilah Muhammad, 54.21 to 54.59.
Britain’s four-time Olympic gold medallist Mo Farah won the 3000m in 7:41.20 from Patrick Tiernan’s 7:41.62, while Willy Tarbei pipped David Rudisha to 800m victory, 1:44.86 to 1:44.90.
Source: AW
