Usain Bolt has officially retired from the track. The 30-year-old was given a special send-off on the last day of the IAAF World Championships in London. Bolt’s final curtain call and Mo Farah’s last track events were considered the high points of the sporting spectacle.
President of the IAAF, Sebastian Coe, was quoted hailing the event as offering “the highest standards of qualification, the biggest number of athletes, the most ticket sales…”
To many, it was seen as the largest World Championship ever held – and over 700,000 tickets were sold during the ten day competition.
For the first time in 34-years the IAAF World champs came to London and it gave fans a chance to relive the spirit of the Olympic games held here in 2012.
“We came from Birmingham, it’s been great just to walk around the Olympic park again and it’s like the Olympics is back.” One fan told CGTN Africa’s Celestine Karoney.
Sprinting legend Usain Bolt brought the curtain down on an impressive career in London.
It may not have been a winning end but it was still a fitting farewell.
“For me I was saying goodbye to the fans and for me I’m just always I’m just saying goodbye to my events also,” Bolt said in a press conference.
“These are my two events that I’ve dominated for years so I was just saying goodbye to everything, you know what I mean. I think I almost cried. It was close but it didn’t.”
Multiple distance running gold medalist Mo Farah also bid farewell to his track career on home-soil
“It was great and the crowd was amazing,” Farah told reporters.
As it is with every sporting event there was joy, shock, heartbreak and even disappointment on track and in the field. In the end the USA finished top of the medal standings with 10 gold medals while Kenya’s five golds put them in second and South Africa third with three gold medals.
