Usain Bolt

Usain Bolt will encounter competitor Asafa Powell over 100 metres for the first time this season in Rome in May 26, the third of the season’s Diamond League events. Usain Bolt will not compete in Britain again this summer because of the huge tax-bill he would be hit with. Bolt – the biggest name in track and field – has not been signed up for the Grand Prix events at Crystal Palace or Birmingham this summer and may now not compete in Britain again until London Olympics 2012.

Bolt, the Olympic champion and world’s fastest man, missed most of last year due to injury. But the Jamaican will warm up for this summer’s World Championships, where he will defend his 100m and 200m titles, against fellow countryman Powell at a Diamond League meeting in the Italian capital on May 26. Powell set a world 100m record of 9.74 secs himself in Italy in 2007 – a mark which Bolt has since broken three times. His last world mark of 9.58 secs was at the 2009 World Championships in Berlin. Bolt already set his schedule, with race in Oslo following Rome.

Usain Bolt is said to be faster than every one of the billions of Homo Sapiens to have roamed the Earth in the past 200,000 years. But Bolt believes anyone can accelerate to greatness, there are no secrets. The message: “Catch me if you can” is absolutely apt to him.

The 2011 IAAF Diamond League is already underway on 6 May in Doha and will end on 16 September in Brussels, Belgium, to create more of the head-to-heads between the big stars and rivals. That didn’t really happen in its first edition; because of injuries to people like Usain Bolt This is the second edition of the Diamond League, an annual series of fourteen one-day track and field meetings.

When Diamond enters into Europe we will be seeing those big clashes. It’s those head-to-heads that will enrich the Diamond League. Ideally if there are three or four rivals in each event to make it exciting , as the men’s 100m with Bolt, Gay, Asafa Powell and a couple of the other Jamaicans. Next upcoming event of Diamond League is in Shanghai on Sunday 15 May. But Bolt and Gay would not be part of event at Shangai

The trios of Bolt, Powell and Gay have not competed in the same race since the 2009 world championships, where Bolt set world records in both the 100 and 200 metres, Gay and Powell took silver and bronze in the 100 metres but did not contest the 200. The world’s two fastest men met only once last year, when Gay upset Bolt in Stockholm.

Tags: Asafa Powell, Athletics, Diamond League, Rome, Tyson Gay, Usain Bolt