Sydney, Australia – Asafa Powell’s urgent mission to remake himself into the world’s fastest man and cut down fellow Jamaican Usain Bolt will make a flying start in the Sydney Track Classic at Homebush on Saturday, February 28.
The Sydney Track Classic is one of a select group of Area meetings at which points can be acquired by athletes to qualify for the IAAF / VTB Bank World Athletics Final, to be held on September 12-13 in Thessaloniki, Greece.
A trimmed-down Powell has arrived in Australia and did his first training session yesterday morning in Melbourne in readiness for what he expects will be a painful experience in the Sydney 400m race.
Caribbean sprinters traditionally start their competition season with a 400m, although the science behind the practice doesn’t necessarily match up to the logic of the theory that it helps the athlete recruit muscle fibres which may lay inactive if not for the extreme fatigue induced when racing over 400m.
So Bolt raced 400m over the past two weekends in Kingston, running a solid 45.54sec last Saturday which may be the standard by which Powell can judge himself in Sydney.
Powell’s best is by comparison a sorry 47.17, although he is more of a 100m specialist than Bolt who won the 100m and 200m in World record times at last year’s Olympic Games.
Powell was almost written off after placing ‘only’ fifth in his second Olympic 100m final, but he came back with an astonishing run to anchor the Jamaican 4x100m relay to a World record in Beijing and then on September 2 in Lausanne he ran his fastest 100m ever of 9.72sec, just 0.03sec slower than Bolt’s record.
What has been generally forgotten is that Powell missed more than two months’ training with a gashed knee and then a shoulder operation after ripping the muscle from his shoulder while bench pressing in the gym.
He then strained a groin muscle at the Rome Golden League on 5 July and did not race again for 20 days, competing only then in London (9.94) and Monte Carlo (9.82) before lining up in Beijing.
Coach Stephen Francis has examined every aspect of his training to try to help Powell avoid injury and peak when it counts.
“What happened at the Olympics proved a lot because it was a big contrast between how Asafa did versus other members of his training group,” Francis said.
“We were able to zero in on what his problems were and I think we have taken steps to hopefully give him a better opportunity to reveal his true abilities. A lot of it has to do with expectation, a lot of it has to do with his approach to being under pressure.”
“We have been working to change… and we are hoping that when the time comes he will be better than he has ever been.”
And after setting the 100m World record in 2005 at 9.77, equalling that twice in 2006, lowering it to 9.74 in 2007 and clocking a personal best 9.72 last year only a fool would dare write him off.
“It’s a lot easier now being in second place,” Powell admitted yesterday (22). “It gives you something to work for. I’m working hard to get myself back on top. I’m working on everything. I’ve been working with a psychologist and others, just so I’m ready to win when the times comes.”
Part of that process involves committing to a 400m race in Sydney where he will line up against top Australians including Olympic semi-finalist Joel Milburn from the Blue Mountains, fellow Olympian Sean Wroe, Commonwealth champion John Steffensen, the phenomenally talented American Xavier ‘X-Man’ Carter and another Jamaican, Sanja Ayre and Japan’s Yoshihiro Horigome.
Milburn is excited about racing Powell: “We all know he’s one of the fastest people ever to walk on the Earth. I’d hate to race him in 100m… I’d just look stupid.”
“I’ve run at a few meets where he has competed but I’ve never talked to him. I’ll try to talk to him before the 400m, before he loses his breath.”
Mike Hurst (Sydney Daily Telegraph) for the IAAF
