Athletics
Usain Bolt’s Career Ends in Crash
He emerged like a thunderbolt at the Beijing Olympics and had remained very great until the sudden crash at the 2017 world athletics championships in London.
Poor Usain Bolt, the greatest sprinter of the present era. He did not quit the tracks when the ovation was at the loudest. He wanted the London championship as the farewell.
He miscalculated. The farewell meet took an unexpected turn when he finished in third place at last week’s 100-metre dash final.
On Saturday, in the concluding race of his career, the disappointing results continued with the Jamaican falling down during the 4×100 relay final.
Running the anchor leg, Bolt pulled up with an apparent cramp to his left hamstring.
He limped for a few moments before falling to a heap on the track. His fellow teammates came to his assistance and Bolt eventually was able to get back on his feet and limp off the track.
“It’s a cramp in his left hamstring, but a lot of the pain is from disappointment from losing the race,” Jamaican team doctor Kevin Jones said. “The last three weeks have been hard for him, you know. We hope for the best for him.”
The host country, Great Britain, finished first in 37.47 seconds, followed by the United States (37.52) and Japan (38.04).
This is a heartbreaking end to a career in which the 33-year-old has set world records in the 100m and 200m sprints and taken home an astonishing eight Olympic gold medals.
Athletics
Former 800m world champion Pierre-Ambroise Bosse banned for 16 months
France’s former 800m world champion Pierre-Ambroise Bosse has received a 16-month ban from the French Anti-Doping Agency after missing three drug tests in the space of nine months. Bosse announced he was quitting athletics late last year due to recurrent injuries.
The sanction comes after the 31-year-old missed three drug tests between September 2022 and June 2023. Bosse had announced his retirement in December, seven months before the Paris 2024 Olympics. He had received notifications of breaches three times, with the period coinciding with his efforts to return to a high-level athletic performance despite grappling with a hamstring injury.
The initial breach occurred on 25 September 2022, when an anti-doping controller arrived at his residence to conduct a test within the athlete’s scheduled time slot, but Bosse was not available. He told French news outlet L’Équipe: “I was one foot in training, one foot on holiday.”
Bosse, who was eliminated at semi-final stage of the Tokyo Olympics, was enduring a thigh problem at the time. Following surgery in December 2022, Bosse embarked on a race against time with the aspiration of competing in his fourth Olympic Games in Paris.
On 1 May 2023, authorities tried to contact him again, but were unable to reach him during a time when he was with family in Nantes. “I wasn’t worried at that time because I had forgotten the previous one and so I thought I only had one. At that moment, I gave up completely.”
Then a month later, a controller returned to his residence for another scheduled check, but the athlete was evidently absent. He was subsequently informed a few weeks later of a likely two-year suspension for failing to fulfill such obligations.
Despite feeling dejected and shocked, Bosse attempted to defend himself by attributing the second violation to an issue with the absence of a doorbell.
“I made three mistakes, I accept. It’s true that I haven’t always been the best student when it comes to taking care of my location but, until then, it had never played any tricks on me. I know I should have been more serious but I would like to point out that I have been in the AFLD target group since 2012 and they have all my analyses.”
The 31-year-old was unable to recuperate following surgery on his right thigh last year and had been out of competition since April 2023.
Before his injury troubles he most notably secured fourth place in the 800m at the Rio Games back in 2016, and has yet to recapture the form that led to his crowning as the world champion over 800m in London in 2017. Bosse also got his hands on bronze at the European Championships in both 2012 and 2018.
Since leaving his beloved sport behind, the Frenchman has starred in two reality TV shows in his homeland and focussed on his association combining sport and ecology which he launched with his friend and former international team-mate Bryan Cantero.
Athletics
Nigerian-born Ujah recalled to Britain’s relay squad after serving doping ban
Chijindu Ujah has been recalled to Britain’s 4x100m squad for the World Athletics Relays in May, 10 months after serving his ban for a doping violation which resulted in his team being stripped of their silver medals at the Tokyo Olympics.
Sprinter Ujah was banned by the Athletics Integrity Unit (AIU) for 22 months in October 2022, which was backdated from August 2021 to June 2023. However, the AIU had cleared Ujah of intentionally taking prohibited substances.
Britain were stripped of the Tokyo silver after the Court of Arbitration for Sport upheld Ujah’s anti-doping rule violation, though former UK Athletics technical director Stephen Maguire had said he would be considered for selection again after his ban.
Ujah’s team mates Richard Kilty, Zharnel Hughes and Nethaneel Mitchell-Blake also had their medals stripped, with Kilty saying they were left “devastated” since they had strictly followed the rules unlike Ujah.
All four sprinters were named in an eight-man 4x100m relay squad for the World Athletics Relays in the Bahamas on May 4-5, giving Ujah another shot to redeem himself before the Olympic Games in Paris from July 26-Aug. 11.
“They have had their fair share of challenges in recent years,” said Darren Campbell, British Athletics’ head of sprints, hurdles and relays.
“But I have had my own discussions with each and every member of the squad and know they are motivated, committed and focused on working together to reach Paris.”
-Reuters
Athletics
A clash of two citizens as Tobi Amusan and Ofili compete in US tourney today
World record holder in women’s 100m hurdles, Tobi Amusan, will later today attempt to surpass her personal best of 11.10 seconds in the 100m event at the Tom Jones Memorial Invitational hosted by the University of Florida this Friday
The race will feature another Nigerian, Favour Ofili. Both will be competing in a power-packed field that will include world championships finalist Tamari Davis and her compatriot Melissa Jefferson, who’s a former US champion as well as Jamaican duo Alana Reid and Kemba Nelson and Abby Steiner.
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