Catch me if you can, says world's fastest man after triple

Usain Bolt may have two more races to run this season, but his thoughts have already turned to holidays after he notched up a second treble gold at the world athletics championships.

The 26-year-old won the 100 and 200m individual titles in dominant fashion at Luzhniki Stadium and appropriately anchored the Jamaican team to victory in the 4x100m relay, the final event of the nine-day competition.

His world medal haul now stands at eight golds, the same as American women's 200m specialist Allyson Felix and retired US track stars Carl Lewis and Michael Johnson.

"I work hard and will continue working hard and pushing myself. I try and do my best at all times," said Bolt, who refused to be drawn on who was the better athlete between him and Lewis.

"I really can't say," he said. "I'm just doing what I've got to do."

Bolt, who is due to race at Zurich and the season-ending Brussels meet in the Diamond League, said: "Anything is possible - that's my motto in track and field.

"I'll give my all and hope to get three (more medals)," he said when asked about his plans for the next world championships, in Beijing in 2015.

"The rest of the athletes have got to step up and push hard."

But while the Jamaican said he "overcomes any obstacles that get in the way", he did admit to feeling the creeping pains of age.

"Yes, definitely," he said. "Every year it gets harder. You get older and it gets harder. The more you run, the harder it is, but you keep pushing yourself."

In a frank admission, Bolt also took aim at the organizers of the world championships, which took some time to build a decent atmos-phere and notably did not even enjoy a full stadium for the 100m final, normally viewed as the showcase event of track and field.

"It's been a different championships, not the best," Bolt said.

"It got better over days, they changed a few things. People got more relaxed, people started smiling, they got more people in the stadium and it really picked up at the end.

"I'm used to going to the 100m final with the stadium jammed."

The world of sprinting had been hit hard in the run-up to the championships with a raft of positive doping cases, notably American Tyson Gay and Jamaican Asafa Powell, tarnishing track and field as a whole.

But veteran Justin Gatlin, who anchored the US team to silver to go along with his individual 100m silver, insisted the sport is healthy.

Gatlin is one of the highest-profile athletes competing to have fallen foul of drugs, having served a four-year ban for taking banned substances, but said: "The sport's in a good place. We still are the sport.

"We put on a good showing here in Moscow. The excitement of track and field is still there and it is still magical."

(China Daily 08/21/2013 page22)