UNITED KINGDON: LONDON 2012 OLYMPICS: London's Olympic Park prepares for mens 100m final

Record ID: 331006

  • Title: UNITED KINGDON: LONDON 2012 OLYMPICS: London's Olympic Park prepares for mens 100m final
  • Date: 5th August 2012
  • Summary: VISITORS WITH HATS IN NATIONAL COLOURS
  • Embargoed: 20th August 2012 13:00
  • Keywords:
  • Location: United Kingdom
  • Country: United Kingdom
  • Topics: Sports
  • Reuters ID: LVAC7CVFZHNDR9GTQYA54WE9TZH3
  • Story Text: Spectators poured into the Olympic Park on Sunday (August 5) for Day 9 of the Olympic Games which will decide who is the fastest man on Earth.
    Usain Bolt will fight with his rivals for the men's 100m title at the end of the day, but the British spectators arriving to watch events were still buzzing from Britain's best day at an Olympics since the first London Games in 1908.
    Three athletics golds went Britain's way in the stadium, and three more elsewhere.
    Jessica Ennis, poster girl of these Olympics, collapsed in tears of relief after a capacity 80,000 crowd roared her to victory in the heptathlon.
    Greg Rutherford then won a surprise long jump gold and finally Mo Farah, born in Somalia but brought up in England, won Britain's first 10,000 metres gold to break 16 years of Ethiopian domination in the event.
    Michael Lowcock watched it in a London hotel having travelled down from Crewe, ready for Sunday's competition.

    "I thought it was amazing," he said. "We watched it in the hotel last night as we were having dinner and it was an amazing atmosphere in the hotel, everybody cheering there as well as in the Olympic Park and we have come to see hopefully more today."
    Davina Bajorek was another to watch the action on television as she prepared for her Sunday visit to the Park.

    "Jessica Ennis fantastic, Mo Farah fantastic and the long jump also, amazing," she said. "I wish we could have been there but we couldn't get tickets for that so here today instead."
    Katie O'Malley was watching an event elsewhere in the Park on Saturday but saw the action on a big screen.

    "I'm proud to be British," she said, with her friend Katherine Green from Bristol.
    Other spectators were deciding if they thought Usain Bolt could retain his Olympic title in the 100m. The Jamaican claimed a golden treble with three astonishing world records at the last Olympics in Beijing, but since then he has lost his world title and his aura of invincibility, having been beaten by compatriot Yohan Blake in both the 100m and 200m at the Jamaican Olympic trials in June.
    Despite this, some felt that Bolt will still come out on top.

    "I think Bolt definitely, he's looking confident and relaxed," said Katie Stevens from Cambridge.
    Els and Bram Goolaerts from Belgium were undecided.

    "It's going to be difficult," they said. "I think it's probably going to be Blake. He did beat him before so.. But on the other hand I think Bolt maybe sometimes, you get people who just you know step up, it will be very exciting."
    The semi-finalists earlier in the day will be led by American Ryan Bailey, who clocked 9.88 seconds in the heats, and Justin Gatlin (9.97) while Bolt qualified ninth fastest.
    But the semis also include the three fastest men in history after Bolt - Blake and Asafa Powell of Jamaica and Tyson Gay of the United States.
  • Copyright Holder: REUTERS
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