media_artricles :: 2016

Boldon: Track and field at lowest ebb

QUADRUPLE NATIONAL Olympic medallist Ato Boldon has admitted the sport of track and field may be at its lowest ebb due to the recent doping scandal - which has seen IAAF's leading sponsor Adidas announce its plan to terminate its sponsorship deal.

In January, chairman of the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) Dick Pound, in a scathing report compiled by an independent commission, revealed that "corruption was embedded" within the IAAF during the reign of former president Lamine Diack.

The report also claimed that top un-named figures in the IAAF were aware of the scale of corruption in the sport.

And Boldon, in an interview on Friday, commented, "the sport has had to bounce back from many things. I think that is the biggest crisis in our sport's history. This outdoes (disgraced sprinters) Ben Johnson, Marion Jones (everything)." The 42-year-old Boldon, who captured bronze medals at the 1996 Olympic Games in Atlanta, United States (100 and 200 metres) as well as silver (100m) and bronze (200m) at the 2000 Olympics in Melbourne, Australia, continued, "does it concern me as an official ambassador for the sport? It concerns me. But, at the same time, I have had to figure out this year how to be very selfish with my energy and with my time." Boldon, who serves as a commentator with NBC as well as a coach, said, "I have six athletes who, on a daily basis, need my attention. So I let the other people whose job it is to restore the sport to its glory do that and I focus on the things that I can control." Some of the athletes who are under the tutelage of Boldon are national sprinters Richard Thompson (triple Olympic medallist), Kelly-Ann Baptiste and Khalifa St Fort.

With the Olympic Games in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil scheduled from August 5-21, Boldon is confident that the Jamaican pair of Usain Bolt and Shelly- Ann Fraser-Pryce can claim their third straight 100m gold medals respectively.

"I was actually in Kingston (on Thursday) interviewing Shelly-Ann Fraser-Pryce and she is laser-focused (and) experienced.

She is going to be difficult to beat, everybody knows that.

"They had their chance to beat Bolt last year," he added.

"He was having his worst-ever season and we saw him rise to the occasion, stomping all the experts including me." Boldon pointed out, "Bolt has (it), believe it or not, maybe easier in 2016 than it was in the prior two Olympic Games. In 2008 he didn't have the experience in the 100 (metres). He took care of business by a wide margin. In 2012, he had Yohan Blake who had beaten him in the Jamaican trials. He took care of business, that was a great field I believe the top five or top six ever.

"Now you look at the landscape, Blake is not 100 percent, (Justin) Gatlin I don't know if he's going to come back from what happened last year. It may be his easiest path to the Olympic gold, this term," he ended.

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