Usain Bolt is beatable. That is the message that flashed around the world from Ostrava to all his Olympic rivals on Friday night.
Bolt did not lose but he ran the worst 100 metres of his career. No questioning that because 10.04sec is his slowest in any race outside heats at championships.
Not since 2009 during a thunderstorm in Toronto has the world’s fastest man failed to break 10 seconds. Even in the race there he clocked 10 dead.
Here he came out of his blocks like a man tied to them, hardly picked up pace for 50 metres and only overhauled the field in the final forty.
‘I had a bad start and I had no feeling the whole race. My legs kinda felt dead. I don’t know the reason. The first 40 were really bad. I never felt the power out of my legs. It was going through the motions,’ Bolt explained into a mass of microphones at the finish.
‘I have to go back to the drawing board, talk to my coach and see if he can tell me what changes I have to make before my next race. It was just a bad day. I have to get past it and look forward to the next one.’
That will in Rome non Thursday, and his rivals will be savouring the possibilities. Kim Collins, 36, who came closest to him in 10.19sec, said: ‘The Powells, Gays and Blakes will be thinking “If Kim can be that close I can do better”.’
But Collins offered consolation. ‘You have to understand that he is human. He can’t run 9.5 every day and the days when he can’t we are going to be running hard to beat him.’
Britain’s Dwain Chambers, fifth in a season’s best of 10.28sec which leaves him still without the Olympic qualifying time of 10.18, offered another possible reason for Bolt’s lethargy. ‘It was very cold out there,’ he said.
But for a slight head wind of 0.8 metres per second Bolt might actually have run his 28th sub-10sec time but that would only have obscured his indifferent running. Even his reaction time to the gun of 0.180sec was not that of the world’s fastest human. It was the slowest of all seven in the race.
Bolt tried to comfort himself. ‘I don’t know what my rivals will think about it but it’s all about the Olympics. Losing one race, losing two, doesn’t matter. It’s about getting to the Olympics and doing my best there,’ he explained.
Britain’s only winner in an A race — Mark Lewis-Francis won the B 100 in 10.36sec — was US-born, US-resident Tiffany Porter in the 100m hurdles. Her time of 12.65sec equalled her best of the year and was far too good for Canadian Priscilla Lopes-Schliep, the world championship silver medallist, and Americans Lolo Jones, the world indoor champion.
Porter goes from Ostrava to London to a rented home in Enfield where she will base herself until the Olympic Games. Her American husband Jeff, who was second in the 110m hurdles in a year’s best of 13.29sec, will return to their home in the States to prepare for the US Olympic trials.
There were notable performances behind Mr Porter from two young Britons, Andy Pozzi, fourth in 13.36sec and Lawrence Clark fifth in 13.42sec. Both beat European champion and British No 1 Andy Turner who could manage only 13.48sec.
Olympic champion Christine Ohuruogu was beaten for a 14th time in 15 races by American Sanya Richards-Ross, this time by a margin of 0.54sec. Her time of 51.19sec will not please her but, to be fair, by the time she ran it was both windy and very cold.
By NEIL WILSON
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