Glen Mills, coach of world’s fastest man Usain Bolt, has backed up statements made by his star athlete who dismissed recent concerns that back problems have continuously hampered his preparations this season.
Bolt suffers from scoliosis, an abnormal curvature of the spine, which has caused the world’s fastest man to constantly undergo treatment from German specialist Hans Muller-Wohlfahrt several times per year.
worrisome
Yet to open his 2011 season and having already gone to see the physician twice this year, speculation has been rife that the condition is proving to be more worrisome than usual. However, his coach insisted that none of the situations were unusual.
“Going overseas to Wohlfahrt is a routine thing, he has five visits every year regardless of what condition he is in, that’s standard. He goes five times a year and he has only gone two, so he is doing well,” Mills said.
“He is scheduled to start in Rome next week. We were a bit behind in our training schedule but it’s a long season. This year is the latest that the World Championship will be held so we have to strategise our preparations. If you notice most of his serious major competitors have just started running, so it’s not anything out of the ordinary to start at a later point in the season.”
Bolt is expected to make his long-awaited season debut when he faces compatriot Asafa Powell at the Golden Gala meet in Rome over 100 metres next week. In his 100m opener last year, Bolt clocked 9.86 seconds in South Korea after registering an impressive 19.56 over 200m earlier in the season.
Mills, has however, revealed very little about what kind of shape he believed the sprinter was in, time-wise, this time around. The coach at the same time rubbished rumours that the sprinter had clocked 24-plus over 250 metres at a time trial last week.
“That’s a false report. I do not predict the times, I too am interested to see what he can do in his first race,” he said.
