08 July,2009 08:27 AM IST | | AFP
Jamaican sprint king Usain Bolt recorded the fourth fastest time in history in the 200 metres of 19.59 seconds at the IAAF Grand Prix meeting last night despite heavy rain.
The 22-year-old triple Olympic champion world record holder both at 100m and 200m eased home 82hundreths of a second ahead of the United States' 400m Olympic champion Lashawn Merritt.
Recently-crowned American champion Shawn Crawford was left trailing over a second behind.
Bolt, who was running into a headwind, was just a hundreth of a second outside the best time of the year set by USA's triple world champion Tyson Gay, who had the benefit of a favourable tailwind when he ran in New York on May 30.
"I pushed myself right to the end because I wanted to really test myself," said Bolt, who was running only his third 200m of the season.
"Would I have broken the world record (19.30sec) had it been better weather? I don't even think of it in those terms, I was just trying to test myself. I didn't think it possible to get so much pleasure in running in these conditions.
"I felt relaxed despite the rain. Therefore I wasn't even thinking about what I could have done if it had been good weather," added Bolt, whose next race will be the 100m in the Golden League meeting in Paris on Friday week.
His compatriot and perpetual underachiever in major finals Asafa Powell won the 100m in 10.07sec into a headwind, which left the former world record holder satisfied. "I hate running in the rain but I'm happy with my performance," he said.
Cuba also celebrated a double victory as world record holder Dayron Robles won the 110m hurdles in 13.18sec while Yargelis Savigne won the triple jump with a 14.91metre leap.
