Streets are good but stadiums better

MONACO – World athletics chief Lamine Diack said he enjoyed seeing Olympic champion Usain Bolt win a rare street race over 150 metres, but affirmed that stadiums remain the future of the sport.

Jamaica’s triple gold medal winner from Beijing beat three British sprinters on his way to victory on Sunday in Manchester.IAAF president Diack, speaking here after the announcement that Samsung would become the seventh major sponsor for the sport’s world championships, said: ‘It was a good promotional idea, we should encourage these kind of events.’But it’s not the future. The future is in the stadiums.’Bolt, whom Diack sees ‘on the same terms as athletics legends Jesse Owens or Carl Lewis’, won the 150-metre race in 14.35 sec and showed no ill-effects from a recent, high-speed car crash.Bolt, the world record holder in the 100m, then vowed to be at peak fitness for this year’s world championships in Berlin.’I think I’m probably 70 per cent so I really have to buckle down. I still have a lot of work to do but I am getting there,’ said the 22-year-old.’I am hoping by Berlin (the world championships) I will be 100 percent. I don’t try to peak before and I try to work towards it race by race.’ – Nampa-AFP