ATHLETICS chief Sebastian Coe described the sight of Usain Bolt pulling up injured in the final race of his glittering career as “horrible”.
The Jamaican collapsed to the track on the final leg of the 4x100 metres relay at the World Championships in London on Saturday.
Coe, president of world athletics governing body the IAAF, said: “The athlete in me tells me it’s a devastating moment if you’re in mid-race and something starts not to work, it’s horrible.
“Whether the Jamaican team were in a medal position or not, the reality of it is you don’t want to see anybody not being to be able to fulfil what they warmed up to do and what they prepared to do.
“What we are going to miss about Usain Bolt is not the three back-to-back Olympic Games or the clutch of world records or the medals, it’s going to be because he has an opinion, he has a view, he fills a room. We have some really terrific talent that’s identified themselves at these championships, but that’s not the same as filling that void.”
Bolt’s team-mate Yohan Blake blamed the 30-year-old’s injury on the delay to the race, which started 10 minutes later than scheduled.
“I think they were holding us too long in the call room. The walk was too long,” the former world 100m champion said as he hit out at the organisers. “Usain was really cold. In fact Usain said to me, ‘Yohan, I think this is crazy’.”
But Niels de Vos, the chief executive of UK Athletics and London 2017, said: “It’s an unfortunate inevitability that the final event of any World Championship is often slightly later than timetabled.
“I expect Usain himself would be the very last person to complain, not least because often he’s been the cause of events being delayed because of the mass celebration that happens around him.”
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