JAPAN: ATHLETICS - Jamaican Asafa Powell sets sights on 9.7second run for 100 metres next season

World record holder Asafa Powell is aiming to run under 9.7 seconds for the 100 metres next season after enjoying an electrifying year on the track. The Jamaican is on a 23-race winning streak and equalled his world record of 9.77 seconds in Gateshead in June at part of a season when he has recorded 12 legal sub-10 second runs. "Well, I'm felling very good right now, I think I've got over the jet lag. So I guess I am ready to run," Powell said at a press conference on Saturday (September 23), a day before his final race of the year in Yokohama. Olympic and world champion Justin Gatlin had shared the record with Powell but the American has been banned, pending an arbitration hearing, after a positive test for testosterone in April. Powell was diplomatic about Gatlin's positive drugs test, admitting only that it had come as a shock. "Well, once I stay clean, I think that should prove everything. I don't think anything else can really, we can do anything else to prove to the people really that the athletes, we are not taking drugs. Once the athletes stay clean, no one gets anymore drug offence. I think everyone will start looking at us differently." he said. When informed Gatlin held the current meet record of 9.97 seconds in Yokohama, Powell gave a derisory snort. "I will be aiming for something a lot better than that," the 23-year-old smiled, and added: "My target for tomorrow is to go as fast as I can... whatever that is maybe 9.77 again, maybe 9.74, maybe 9.6, I am not sure. Whatever I am capable of doing tomorrow, I will do it to the best of my abilities."

ITN Source | September 24, 2006

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