But Usain Bolt is confident that he can achieve all of his training targets by the time the international track & field season kicks into full gear.
“I wouldn’t say I’m way back, but I’m getting there because I’m really putting in the hours,” the Jamaican superstar told RJR Sports.
He added: “In a few months I should be fully in shape and looking good.”
Bolt will hit the track this weekend at the National Stadium, when he will contest the 400 metres at the Camperdown Classic.
He gave no indication if this was a sign of things to come, and he had finally relented on running the event competitively in the future, or whether it was just part of his rituals to get himself prepared for the coming season.
At the same time, Bolt unveiled on Wednesday a piece of the Berlin Wall which was presented to him by the German government in recognition of his exploits at the World Championships there.
On the last day of the Berlin Championships, the mayor of the city presented Bolt with a 12-foot high section of the famous wall in a small ceremony, saying Bolt had shown that “one can tear down walls that had been considered as insurmountable”.
“I’m very honoured because it’s a very big deal because it means a lot to the German people after the divide, so to get a piece of the wall which actually shows unity, I feel very honoured,” said Bolt.
Last August, the tall, lean sprinting machine lowered his 100m and 200m World records to 9.58 and 19.19 secs respectively.
He was also part of Jamaica’s 4x100m men’s relay team that clocked 37.31 secs which established a new World Championships record and the second fastest time in history for the event.
It was however, just short of their World record of 37.10 secs at the Olympic Games in Bejing just a year earlier.
The nearly three-ton monument was delivered to Bolt’s training camp in Jamaica recently. It is now available for public viewing at the Jamaica Defence Force’s Up Park Camp headquarters in Kingston.
Sports Minister Olivia “Babsy” Grange, representatives of the German embassy, and Howard Aris, president of the Jamaica Amateur Athletic Association, were among the invited guests at the unveiling.
