Fresh off his signature victory over American Justin Gatlin in the 100m finals at the 15th IAAF World Championships in Beijing, China, Usain Bolt has jumped to the defence of teammate and team captain Asafa Powell who was a disappointing seventh.
Bolt posted on his twitter account on Monday “Bro just keep strong.. Ppl don’t get this journey and sacrifice we all put into this..” in response to a series of posts Powell had made since Sunday.
Bolt’s post was in response to one where Powell sought to apologise for his seventh place in the 100m finals Sunday morning (Jamaican time) “I am sorry I disappointed and let my fans Jamaica down at another championship. There’s nothing you can say that I haven’t said to myself.”
Powell who went into the final on the back of a string of fast times, including two in the early rounds, 9.95 seconds (-0.1m/s) and 9.97 seconds (-0.4 m/s), finished out of the medal frame running 10.00 seconds (0.5m/s), incurring the wrath of scores of track and field fans.
Powell who has been representing Jamaica at the senior level for over 13 years, has won two bronze medals in the 100m at the World Championships, in Osaka, Japan in 2007 and 2009 in Berlin, Germany.
His failures however at both the World Championships and Olympic Games have not gone down well with track and field fans.
Paul Reid
fi real mi like dis ppl a mouth di youth too much now,he is trying and stay sub10king before bolt there was jus him powell,don’t read into the negativity weh sum a dash you did your best and made it to finals see you in the 4×1 relay papa
Powell made a big combat for someone his age.
We have to know when to let ppl be. Folks are just too cruel online, there is no reason to troll the man page. Let him be man! I could never go on someone’s page and type negativity over something like this. Everybody’s life will never go in the same direction, everybody’s path different.
He was nervous, it was a big race and even though he’s been running well nervousness got the best of him. It can happen to anyone like Bolt that staggered out his blocks previously and caught himself. Ppl tend to criticize when is not them especially in sports. Seet deh Bolt won and you still hearing it wasn’t good enough
Once u are a famous athlete u gonna have criticism, di only way to silence critics is win.