ROME: Six-times Olympic champion Usain Bolt will run the 100 meters at Rome’s Golden Gala meeting on June 6, organizers said yesterday.
The Jamaican world record holder has already announced appearances in the 200 at Oslo’s Bislett Games on June 13 and at the Paris Golden League meeting on July 6 ahead of the world championships in Moscow in August.
Bolt, who became the only man to win the 100-200 meters double at successive Olympics during last year’s London Olympics, is also due to compete in a 150 meters race on Brazil’s Copacabana beach on March 31.
The Golden Gala appearance will be Bolt’s third in a row at Rome’s Olympic stadium. He set a time of 9.91 seconds in 2011 and 9.76 last year in front of more than 50,000 spectators.
Rome is the fifth round of the 14-event Diamond League calendar.
London considers Commonwealth bid
Meantime, London will consider a bid to stage the 2022 Commonwealth Games after successfully hosting the Olympics last year.
With the London 2012 Games regarded as a big hit among fans and athletes alike, Neale Coleman, the London Mayor’s adviser on Olympic legacy, revealed on Monday that an attempt to bring the Commonwealth event to the English capital could be on the cards.
Asked about the need to make full use of the Olympic Stadium in east London by hosting more top-class athletics, Coleman told ITV News: “It is something that is certainly in our minds at the moment.
“We have great potential to use the stadium and the facilities there and to bid in the future for big sporting events.
“One possibility certainly is that we haven’t had a Commonwealth Games in London for a very, very long time.
“It is a fantastic event, it brings people together in a unique way. We do have the facilities there that would make a bid possible.
“It is something that is certainly in our minds at the moment.”
England last staged the Commonwealth Games in Manchester in 2002.
A series of key events on the sporting calendar are now heading toward Britain, including the 2014 Glasgow Commonwealth Games and England’s Rugby World Cup in 2015.
There is also the World Athletics Championships and the Paralympic Athletics World Championships which will be held at London’s Olympic Stadium in 2017.
“We have got a fantastic series of events building on that Olympic legacy of sporting events,” Coleman added.
“We think that the Commonwealth Games could play a further role in developing that over the next decade.”
