Usain Bolt rates Moscow World championships at 7 on 10

Usain Bolt

Moscow, Aug 19 (IANS) Jamaican sprinter Usain Bolt rated the just-concluded Athletics World Championships at seven on a ten-point scale, citing unfamiliar blocks and unexciting food as the negatives.

Following the men’s 100m, 200m and 4x100m relay victories, Bolt finished the championships with three gold medals. By Sunday evening, he has won a total of eight gold medals and two silvers at World Championships, reports Xinhua.

Commenting on the organising work of the nine-day event at a press conference by the end of the day, Bolt said the past one week in Moscow was quite a different experience for him.

Runners complained about the unfamiliar blocks which affected their reaction time.

The type of blocks used in the Moscow race was an old version which had been changed one year ago. After last whole year’s training and competing, the sprinters only realised they have to get back to the old start blocks when they arrived in Moscow, Bolt explained.

Besides technical difficulties, food was another reason for the seven-score rating by Bolt for the champions, as he was disappointed at the same food everyday.

Bolt praised the workers and organisers for their hard work and serious attitude, yet the energetic young man didn’t feel the vigour and emotion of those “cool” people in Moscow at the very beginning as they rarely smiled.

Things got better over the days, he added. “A lot more people got a little more relaxed. A lot more people started smiling. There were a lot more people in the stands. It really picked up at the end.”

The Luzhniki Stadium needs no lightning nor thunder to strike a storm of cheers and hails in the second half of the games. Bolt the lightning, and audience the thundering, just made it enough for several carnivals.

Admitting that the Moscow championship was not the best one, Bolt said it was still memorable, as he put three more golds into his pocket, stepping closer to the 2016 Olympics.

He vowed to be “continuing to pile on the gold medals as much as I can, trying to stay undefeated in the championships”.

Watching his own image in the big screen, dancing and waving to the audience with the Jamaican national flag on his shoulder, he seemed happy and relaxed after Sunday’s furious relay competition.

The king of the world athletics championships made it clear that winning medals was not the ultimate goal, and continuing the legend to the next Olympics matters more.