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SYDNEY: World 100m record holder Asafa Powell said
Friday he expects to be fit to run in the IAAF World Athletics Tour
event in Melbourne next week and remains confident of running ever-
faster times.
Powell will miss the Sydney grand
prix meet on Saturday after cutting his knee when he fell on his
stairs in Jamaica last week.
But he hopes to have the stitches
removed over the weekend, and if he can train successfully on Monday
he will compete in Melbourne on Thursday.
“It’s coming on quite
well,” the Jamaican said here on Friday. “It’s not moving as
fast as I would want it to, but things are looking positive.”
Powell, who broke his own world
record by running 9.74 seconds in Rieti, Italy, in September, said
he was disappointed not to be able to race in Sydney as planned.
“This is why I came to
Australia, to try to compete to the best of my ability,” he told
reporters. “I really wanted to see what I could do here.”
But he said the injury was not a
setback in his preparations for the Beijing Olympics in August,
where he hopes to win his first gold medal in a major competition.
“This week is a rest week for
us, so I’m not missing anything in practice,” he said. “But
next week if I’m not able to run and train I’ll be missing
out.”
--AFP
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