Usain Bolt disqualified from World Championships in Daegu

It had to happen.  A big athlete is disqualified from the finals of a major track and field event.

Usain Bolt has now false started in the men’s 100m finals at the World Championships in Daegu, South Korea and won’t be able to defend his 2009 title.      

For better or worse Bolt’s elimination from the 100m finals might cause the IAAF to reevaluate its one false start rule. 

It was such a disappointment to watch Bolt strip his shirt off his back knowing he was out of the race.  His leaving the race seemed to be the end in one long travesty in the marquee event.  The missing faces of Tyson Gay, Steve Mullings, Michael Rogers and Asafa Powell already diminished to race to me. 

An easy win is sometimes not the best win.  Although I assumed Bolt would win the race without much, effort I wanted there to be athletes to make him run his best race -- athletes who wanted to be champion just as bad as him. 

Now Bolt’s elimination brings the one start false rule before the IAAF officials.  Clearly he had a lot of thoughts going through his mind while at the line, but how thoroughly should he, and others who false start, be penalized for them is now the question.

It seems the rule makers want athletes to deliver faster times, without the help of steroids, and to run the biggest race of their lives without nerves. 

I did like how Bolt took the disqualification though.  He didn’t complain or petition the officials but quickly left the track so the other athletes could race.   

Although he's not the 100m champion, if he successfully defends his 200m title the win might still help to make him the legend he has said he wants to be.  

Yohan Blake, has now legitimized himself as a true Jamaican champion.  The absence of his training partner, Bolt, a lane from him didn’t frazzle Blake.  Instead, when he rose to his top speed he ran with everything and beat American Walter Dix and Kittitian Kim Collins.  

Blake’s win should not be diminished because of Bolt’s false start.  Instead, he rose to the occasion and ran his race to be champion.  That can never be taken from him. 

Positive test for Jamaican sprinter

I was in the hardware store when I heard the news.  The cashier couldn’t focus on ringing up my products.  She was too busy talking to herself.  “I’m going to have a heart attack if it’s true,” she repeated over and over.  This was around 4:30pm, and it was raining outside.  I was tired and just wanted to leave but asked her, ‘if what’s true?’ 

Then she relayed the rumor she heard.  The drug results for one of Jamaica's sprinter was reportedly positive.  If true this would be the second time the athlete would have submitted positive results. 

I told the cashier not to have a heart attack.  It was a figure of speech but she was clearly hurt.  The news was very personal to her as though a family member or close friend betrayed her.   Her eyes were glazed over and she just kept mumbling and talking to herself. 

I too was shocked.  I felt betrayed as a track lover by an athlete of the sport.   Yet again the sport is tainted by drugs just days away for the world championship. The beauty and grace of athletics is comprised for reasons known only to the sprinter.  I felt sad for the athlete, for it would be hard to recover as a professional sprinter should this be true.  

The athlete’s positive test result came from Jamaica’s National Senior trials for the IAAF World Championships which were held five weeks ago. 

Suspicion by international observers has never completely been off the incredible performance by Jamaica’s biggest sprinters.  However, there was an increasing willingness by fans and observers to believe the claims by the sprinters of running pure.  This does give some validity to the testing program in Jamaica as the discovery was made by Jamaican doping officials. 

No one will ever truly know who is pure or not, because if an athlete and their team wants to cheat it’s very hard to detect.  However, what I do know is that the cashier at the hardware store was seriously distraught.  This was the only news that mattered to her. 

I know she will spend the night venting her anger, thoughts and sadness to friends.   It will be a few days before she recovers.  Hopefully, she’ll be fine by the time of the World Championships and be able to enjoy athletics again.