OSLO, Norway, Friday June 14, 2013 – Olympic champion Usain Bolt rebounded from a 100m defeat last week to produce a dominant performance to win the 200 metres at the Bislett Diamond League on Thursday.
Bolt streaked away from the field on the home straight to win comfortably with a world leading time of 19.79 seconds, his first competitive race of the season over the distance.
Norway’s Jasyma Saidy Ndure was second, ahead of Britain’s James Ellington.
Bolt, who is the only man to break the 20-second mark over 200m this season, arrived in Oslo having lost the 100m by one hundredth of second in Rome last week.
“Very chilly but I ran as fast as I could, and as I promised,” he tweeted.
“It was good so I can’t complain.”
Bolt, whose early season was dogged by a hamstring injury, had said earlier in the week he was in the shape to go below 20 seconds at Bislett.
He finished three hundredths of a second quicker than Frankie Fredericks of Namibia managed in 1996 to set a new Bislett Games record.
His main rival in a field lacking any other Jamaican or American athletes, European champion Churandy Martina of the Netherlands, was disqualified from the event for a false start. (CM