Usain Bolt after winning the 100m in Ostrava (© AFP / Getty Images)
Triple double sprint Olympic champion Usain Bolt will be making one of the last 100m appearances of his career at the Golden Spike in Ostrava, Czech Republic, on 28 June, organisers of the IAAF World Challenge meeting have announced.
“The Golden Spike meeting in Ostrava is always one of the first meetings I put in my diary each year and I am happy to announce that I will be competing there for the ninth and final time on June 28 this year," Bolt said.
"I think it was the first professional track meet that invited me to run back at the start of my career and it is fitting that I should return there in my final season."
This year's event, the meeting's 56th edition, will mark Bolt's fifth 100m race in Ostrava. He has also raced three times at 200m and once at 300m, winning on each occasion. This year, his ninth appearance in the eastern Czech city will make the Golden Spike the meeting he's competed in most frequently in his career.
"We have been discussing the ninth Ostrava appearance of the most wanted athlete of the planet since his last triumph at the Olympic Games in Rio, and this weekend he finally confirmed that he is ready to race and that he wants to come to his favorite Ostrava," said Miroslav Cernosek, head of the meeting organising agency.
"We welcomed him here for the first time as an unknown promising kid from Jamaica, and we will be saying goodbye to him as the greatest star of world athletics.”
Bolt is the eighth 2016 Olympic champion confirmed for this year's meeting. Previously annouced were 5000/10,000m winner Mo Farah who'll compete over the longer distance, 400m champion Wayde Van Niekerk who'll compete in the 300m, triple jumper Christian Taylor, javelin champion Thomas Rohler, hammer throw winner Anita Wlodarczyk, 800m world record holder David Rudisha who'll contest the 1000m, and Conseslus Kipruto in the 3000m steeplechase.
Bob Ramsak for the IAAF