Bolt, Crawford to clash in Toronto

TORONTO, Canada (CMC):

Former Olympic 200-metre champion, Shawn Crawford, will be among the challengers for triple Olympic sprint champion Usain Bolt at Canada's Festival of Excellence meeting on June 11.

The event will provide the platform for Bolt's first appearance since he sped to a blistering world record at the Manchester Street Race earlier this month.

Half-lap champion

American Crawford, the 2004 Olympic half-lap champion, lost his Olympic title to Bolt in Beijing last year August when the 6-foot-5-inch Jamaican delivered a world-record win in 19.30 seconds.

Bolt also clocked a world record (9.69) in the 100 metres in his Beijing triumph and is a clear favourite to land his first overseas 100 metres this season.

At a domestic meet in March at the G.C. Foster College in Jamaica, Bolt ran a wind-assisted 9.93 seconds, but had a huge scare in a motor vehicle crash a month ago.

Bolt's BMW ran off the road in slippery conditions on a highway outside of Kingston and the world star escaped with only minor foot injuries.

Quick recovery

Bolt, 22, showed that he recovered quickly from the injuries he suffered in the April 29 accident when he sped to a world best 14.35 seconds in the 150-metre street race in Manchester on May 17.

Crawford has nine sub-10 second performances to his credit over 100 metres and the Festival of Excellence field will also include other Americans Bernard Williams and Ivory Williams, Canadians Anson Henry and Jared Connaughton and Bolt's Jamaican colleagues, Marvin Anderson and Mario Forsythe.

The race is the marquee event at the Festival of Excellence, which will also feature a men's and women's 400 metres, men's 110m Hurdles, a men's and women's mile and a women's 100-metre Hurdles, among other events.