Bolt just squeezes out team mate after slow start

| 09/05/2013

bolt   london   aug 12 028.jpg(CNS): Usain Bolt’s first 100-metre race of the 2013 season last night at Cayman’s invitational meet was a sluggish opener for the track superstar, with one of the slowest times of his career. Bolt failed to break the 10-second barrier, beating Kemar Bailey-Cole by a hair’s breadth in a photo-finish as they both clocked 10.09 seconds. Bolt started slowly but accelerated at the half way mark to the finish line in front of a capacity crowd of some 5,000 at the Truman Bodden sports complex. Despite his up-beat comments at the pre-race press briefing on Tuesday, Bolt admitted it wasn’t what he had hoped for. "It wasn't the best start of the season," Bolt said. "It was good to get a win but now it's time to go back to the drawing board."

Bolt, the 26-year-old world record holder, had targeted the 9.86-second run by USA’s Tyson Gay in Kingston last Saturday but started slowly and had to rely on an injection of speed to pip Bailey-Cole to the post, with Daniel Bailey from Antigua coming in third with a time of 10.23. Cayman’s Kemar Hayman finished 6th with a time of 10.33.

Bolt, falling well short of Yohan Blake's 9.84 meet record, was shaky throughout the race but he toldthe BBC that it was not the hamstring injury which kept him out of last weekend’s race in Jamaica. "It was just a bad race. It wasn't a bothering pain so I can't blame it on that," he said.

Meanwhile, in the women’s 100-meters, Carmelita Jeter of the United States set the track on fire and became the first female sprinter this year to break 11 seconds in her race, setting the meet record with a time of 10.95 seconds. Jeter, the silver medalist at the London Olympics in the 100, won the Cayman Invitational last year in 11.04 seconds.

See the race here.

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  1. Cayman Star :) says:

    When asked how he thought of Cayman after his run, Bolt stated that Cayman was a peaceful place. He was so relaxed here away from the media and journalists that he almost lost the race.  You cant help Bolt from not relaxing.  ; -)

  2. 4 cayman says:

    Just how much did this cost the public purse?

  3. Anonymous says:

    Fix, he clearly lost the race. Show us the photo finish!

  4. Mat says:

    Awesome event. Well done to the organisers. Fantastic for the island….

    • Anonymous says:

      Juliannas speach to the crowd was so obvious that she was trying  very hard to make the Jamaicans feel good by saying that she is part Jamaican herself, as her back ground is from St Elizabeth. Really misleading as her great grand mother was from Lambs River Westmoreland  the Whittinghams and the Collins family. Why is it that  so many Politicians and wanna be Politicians want to aline themselves with the Jamaicans, must be because they are in the majority here. Some people are really users. They are very smart people and you dont have to tell them how to vote.

  5. Anonymous says:

    Erm, he did not win, he was very clearly 2nd place..possibly why no one joined him on the podium after the race? Any idea why he couldn't just be allowed to finish 2nd??

    • Anonymous says:

      Becasue this is the island of fools and the fools bet on Bolt.  Here he is the "honorable winner for life".

  6. Anonymous says:

    Any questions now on why he pulled out of the Jamaica Invitational?

     

    A flat 10.00 would have made it much easier to figure out how much per hour he earned for coming here.

    • Usain Nut says:

      I think he pulled out of the Jamaica invitational last week because he isn't in shape and didn't want to lose in front of the home crowd. I doubt injury was ever really a concern.

    • Anonymous says:

      Why bring up money?  The capacity 5,000 crowd were more than happy.

      • Anonymous says:

        Bolt's appearance fee starts at $200,000 and go as high as $350,000.  Did the gate cover the costs?

    • Hoping for better days says:

      Thanks for coming to Cayman Bolt. Hope you like our little island and come back to visit someday…

    • Anonymous says:

      The man cam to work; does anyone ask you how much you earn when you go to work.

  7. Anonymous says:

    He really took it easy on them. Ran the slowest 100m of his career and still won. Wow just WOW!

    • Anonymous says:

      Uh, lol – good way to put it

    • Anonymous says:

      Such an anti-climax to the whole Meet. If I had paid for my tix I would have demanded a refund!

      • Poor point says:

        Wow, what a poor loser YOU are.  A Free ticket and complain?  Wowza.  Can you say sense of spolied entitlement?  I bet you would complain if you were hungwith an old rope 🙂

    • Anonymous says:

      cayman easy life got to him