First visit to South Korea for triple Olympic and world champion
RALEIGH, North Carolina: Triple Olympic and world champion Usain Bolt would get an early look at the 2011 world championships site when he runs a 100 metres at Daegu, South Korea on May 19, his manager and organisers said on Monday.
CHECK THIS OUT...: Bolt tees up a golf ball as he drives it into the Caribbean Sea during the quarter-final matches of The Mojo 6 Jamaica LPGA Invitational at Cinnamon Hill Golf Course in Montego Bay, Jamaica, in this April 16 file photo. — AFP photo
The race would be the Jamaican’s first 100m of the season and his first visit to South Korea, Ricky Simms, his agent, said in an email to Reuters.
It will precede Bolt’s previously announced 200m at the Shanghai Diamond League meeting on May 23.
“He has tremendous support in Korea and everyone here expects another record from him,” Dong-Hoo Moon, co-president of the Colourful Daegu Pre-Championships Meeting, said in a statement on the event’s website.
Bolt holds the world record at both distances, having run 9.58 and 19.19 seconds at the 2009 world championships in Berlin.
The 2011 world championships are scheduled for Aug 27-Sept 4 in Daegu.
Bolt had eight confirmed races for 2010 with more announcements expected shortly, his management company said in a statement on its website.
The 23-year-old will lead Jamaica in a 4x100m relay at the Penn Relays in Philadelphia on Saturday, then open his individual sprint season with a 200m in Kingston on May 1.
After races in Daegu and Shanghai, Bolt will chase the 300m world record at Ostrava, Czech Republic on May 27.
Diamond League meetings in New York (June 12), Paris (July 16) and Brussels (Aug 27), all at 100m, also are on his schedule.
Three other Diamond League appearances are to be announced as part of his contract with the new global circuit. — Reuters