Usain Bolt floored by injury on final stretch of his career as world championships farewell is ruined
Jamaican sprint legend pulls up with agonising hamstring injury on anchor leg of 4x100 metres relay final in London
Usain Bolt’s unparalleled career ended in extraordinary drama on Saturday as he pulled up with injury on the anchor leg of his very last race, the 4x100 metres relay final at the World Championships.
The 30-year-old had taken the baton for Jamaica a few metres adrift of the two leaders when, straining hard to catch them, he stopped abruptly with cramp in his left hamstring, began hobbling and tumbled to a halt after a forward roll.
As Britain went on to win gold, Bolt lay on his back in his lane, his head in hands, being tended to by medics as one waited with a wheelchair to help push him off the track.
Yet the sport’s greatest entertainer was determined that one of the finest careers in sport was not going to end with him in a wheelchair.
So the fastest man of all-time, surrounded by his three worried team mates, Omar McLeod, Julian Forte and Yohan Blake, rose gingerly to his feet and limped the last 30 metres to the line.