Usain Bolt says he has no regrets about his decision to retire from athletics in 2017 as he has accomplished everything he wants to in the sport.
The Jamaican sprint king will bring down the curtain on a career which has delivered eight Olympic gold medals when he runs his final race at the world championships in London in August.
“I’ve just done everything I wanted to do in the sport,” Bolt said on the red carpet before he was named the Laureus Sportsman of the Year in Monaco.
“I asked (former US sprinter) Michael Johnson the same question: ‘Why did you retire when you were on top?’
“He said the same – he had done everything he had wanted to do in athletics so there was no reason to stay in the sport. Now I understand what he means.”
Bolt completed a ‘treble treble’ of 100m, 200m and 4x100m Olympic titles at the 2016 Rio Games, but lost his 2008 relay gold last month after teammate Nesta Carter’s re-tested sample showed traces of a banned substance and Jamaica were stripped of the medal.
Nesta Carter’s re-tested sample from 2008 was found to have traces of the banned stimulant methylhexaneamine.
Carter has said he will appeal to the Court of Arbitration for Sport.
The 30-year-old Bolt fired his team of international ‘All Stars’ to victory in the inaugural Nitro Athletics Series in Melbourne last week.
He ran his first individual race of the year, burning away from a modest field for an easy win in the 150m sprint.
“I just wanted to run and to be part of it,” he said. “I had to take it easy because I wasn’t at the level I would usually be. It was the first time I had competed at this time of the year.”
Back-to-back Olympic 5,000m and 10,000m gold medal winner Mo Farah and double Olympic tennis champion and world No 1 Andy Murray were also shortlisted for the Laureus award along with Real Madrid forward Cristiano Ronaldo and basketball duo Stephen Curry and LeBron James.
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