Boldon tumbles out of Athens Olympic 100m

ATHENS: Trinidad and Tobago’s Ato Boldon slumped to a heavy defeat and crashed out of the men’s 100 metres from the first round at the 2004 Athens Olympics yesterday. A medallist in the event in consecutive Olympics, Atlanta 1996 and Sydney 2000, Boldon ran a terrible race from lane nine and could only manage fourth in 10.41 seconds. “I am very embarrassed by the effort this morning,” Boldon told CMC Sport. The 30-year-old Boldon, started well —  with a good reaction time —  and raced with the leaders early, but faded in the last half of the race, as Japan’s Nobuharu Asahara won in 10.33 seconds, ahead of Poland’s Lukasz Chyla (10.35) and Eric N’Dri (10.39) of the Ivory Coast.

“I wanted to run somewhere in the 10.1 high region, I wasn’t planning on that time (10.41), I came out here and I had to run better than that,” said Boldon, who won silver in the event at the Sydney Olympics four years ago. The former world 200-metre champion confirmed that this is his “last Olympic Games” and suggested that mental aspects of his race may be affected by injuries that have slowed him in recent years. “A part of it can be mental. When every time you get to top speed you’re waiting for something to grab it can wear on you mentally,” said Boldon, who won the 1997 World Championship 200-metre title here in Athens.

Boldon, with double bronze (100 and 200) at the 1996 Atlanta Olympics and 200 bronze in Sydney 2000, has won more sprint medals than any other Caribbean man in the history of the Olympics, and will now focus on salvaging some farewell Olympic glory with a potentially strong Trinidad and Tobago’s sprint relay team, bronze medallists at the 2001 World Champion-ship in Canada. He is the fifth fastest man of all time over 100 metres at 9.86 seconds and seventh fastest ever over 200 metres at 19.77 seconds. Athens has been generally good to him during his career, he won his only world title here, and he has registered his quickest ever 100-metre time (9.86) twice here, but his Olympic effort yesterday morning was a huge disappointment for him. Boldon’s long time training partner Maurice Greene advanced easily in his heat wit a 10.18 clocking, while American Shaun Crawford (10.02) and Jamaica’s Asafa Powell (10.06) were the fastest of the morning.