Olympic rivals waiting to see whether 'Lightning' will strike twice

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World record holder Usain Bolt’s coach Glen Mills refused to confirm whether his athlete would run the 100m after he qualified for selection by winning at the Jamaican national championships in Kingston ahead of former world record holder Asafa Powell.

Cool runnings: Bolt after winning his 100m race in Jamaica

‘There is no decision yet and there won’t be until August,’ said Mills just hours before hearing that American Tyson Gay had run an American record of 9.77sec in the quarter-finals of the U.S. Olympic trials in Eugene, Oregon. Only Bolt and Powell have run faster.

Bolt is unbeaten at 100m since Mills agreed last September to him running his first race at the distance since his schooldays. He beat Gay into second place in New York in May when he set a new world record of 9.72 to confirm his nickname ‘Lightning Bolt’. Powell and Gay, the world champion, are scheduled to meet over 100m at the Aviva London Grand Prix at Crystal Palace on July 25.

Bolt is expected to be there but is likely to run 200m. That is the distance Mills has been preparing Bolt to run in Beijing.

‘We have had no winter preparations to run the double at the Olympics,’ said Mills before Bolt ran the 200m at the Jamaican championships last night.

Achieving an Olympic sprint double, something Gay intends, involves running seven races.

Bolt and Powell stopped racing at the championships when Bolt overtook his rival’s early lead. They glanced sideways at each other and then turned off the power, Bolt finishing in 9.85 and Powell in 9.97.

Bolt said: ‘I had been telling everyone that it wouldn’t be a clash. We just came to qualify for the Olympics.’

Veronica Campbell-Brown will not be adding Olympic 100m gold to the world title she won in Osaka last year.

The Jamaican missed out on qualification by just 0.01sec, finishing fourth in 10.88 on Saturday behind Kerron Stewart (10.80), Shelley-Ann Fraser (10.85) and Sherone Simpson (10.87) on Saturday, who will all go to the Games.