{"id":237737,"date":"2016-08-09T08:10:02","date_gmt":"2016-08-09T08:10:02","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/citifmonline.com\/?p=237737"},"modified":"2016-08-09T08:10:02","modified_gmt":"2016-08-09T08:10:02","slug":"rio-olympics-2016-usain-bolt-calls-for-faith-but-questions-if-rivals-are-drug-free","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/?p=237737","title":{"rendered":"Rio Olympics 2016: Usain Bolt calls for faith but questions if rivals are drug free"},"content":{"rendered":"

Usain Bolt has defended athletics at a news conference that featured a dance troupe and a rapping Norwegian.<\/p>\n

Amid the razzamatazz, the six-time Olympic champion, 29, made a serious point about the future of the sport.<\/p>\n

The run-up to the Games was dominated by Russia’s doping scandal, while American rivals Justin Gatlin and LaShawn Merritt have served drug bans.<\/p>\n

“People should have faith,” said Bolt. “We’re weeding out the bad ones. We’re going in the right direction.”<\/p>\n

But the Jamaican added “nothing is guaranteed” when asked whether the sprint races at the Games, which start on Saturday, would be drug-free.<\/p>\n

Bolt, who said in February he would retire from athletics after the 2017 World Championships, confirmed this would be his last Olympics.<\/p>\n

The sprinter, who holds the 100m and 200m world records, also said he was aiming to become the first man to run under 19 seconds in the 200m.<\/p>\n

He could leave Rio with a third successive Olympic treble after winning the 100m, 200m and 4x100m relay titles in 2008 and 2012.<\/p>\n

“The 100m is never stressful,” Bolt said. “For some reason, when I get to the 200m, I’m always a little bit nervous.”<\/p>\n

Johnson v Bolt<\/strong><\/p>\n

Retired USA sprinter Michael Johnson believes he would have beaten Bolt at 200m if they had raced in the same era.<\/p>\n

The 48-year-old ran a world record 19.32 seconds to win 200m gold at the 1996 Games in Atlanta.<\/p>\n

Bolt lowered Johnson’s world record twice, setting the current standard of 19.19secs at the 2009 World Championships in Berlin.<\/p>\n

Yet Johnson told the Radio Times: “I’d have been first.”<\/p>\n

Johnson, working in RIo as a pundit for BBC Sport, thinks a rivalry between himself and Bolt would have seen one of them break the 19-second barrier.<\/p>\n

“He thinks the time would have been 19.01 or 19.02,” the American said. “I think we would have been around 18.99, so we differ on that.”<\/p>\n

“But we both agree that we each would have won!”<\/p>\n

The athletics events in Rio begin on Friday, with Bolt first in action in the 100m on the Saturday, before the final on Sunday.<\/p>\n

Box-office Bolt takes centre stage<\/strong><\/p>\n

\n
\n
\"usain<\/div>\n<\/div>
Bolt is a six-time Olympic champion<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Bolt’s news conference on Monday was held at the Cidade das Artes, the home of the Brazilian Symphony Orchestra and the largest theatre in South America.<\/p>\n

The world’s media queued for more than two hours before the start.<\/p>\n

When the event did get under way, there were fewer empty seats than at many of the actual events.<\/p>\n

Given the significant media appeal of the world’s fastest man, it was perhaps to be expected that the news conference would be far from ordinary.<\/p>\n

A Norwegian journalist declined to ask a question, instead proclaiming his love for Bolt before rapping a song in his honour and then blowing him kisses while samba dancers joined the sprinter on stage and danced with him.<\/p>\n

“I like to entertain, because that’s what people come out to see,” said Bolt. “I try to entertain and make it different. That’s my personality.”<\/p>\n

–<\/p>\n

Source: BBC<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Usain Bolt has defended athletics at a news conference that featured a dance troupe and a rapping Norwegian. Amid the razzamatazz, the six-time Olympic champion, 29, made a serious point about the future of the sport. The run-up to the Games was dominated by Russia’s doping scandal, while American rivals Justin Gatlin and LaShawn Merritt […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":14,"featured_media":237738,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jnews-multi-image_gallery":[],"jnews_single_post":[],"jnews_primary_category":[],"jnews_social_meta":[],"jnews_override_counter":[],"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-237737","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/237737","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/14"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=237737"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/237737\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/237738"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=237737"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=237737"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=237737"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}