Usain Bolt fired his team of international ‘All Stars’ to victory in the inaugural Nitro Athletics Series in Melbourne on Saturday, capping the glitzy event with a dominant win in the 4x100m relay to pip hosts Australia in the final standings.
Running the second leg of the relay, the eight-times Olympic gold medal-winner took the baton from fellow Jamaican sprinter Asafa Powell before Jeneba Tarmoh and Natasha Morrison powered to the finish in front of a sell-out crowd at Lakeside Stadium.
Having run in only the relays in the opening two installments of the three-night series, Bolt also took his first individual run of the year, burning away from a modest field for an easy win in the 150m sprint ahead of New Zealander Joseph Millar.
The ‘All-Stars’ finished the team-based meeting with 3,040 points, edging Australia by 77 points, with Bolt playing a key role as both his team’s linchpin and the event’s ‘chief entertainment officer’.
But the final score was less important than the crowds and television figures for an event that promised to “revolutionize” athletics by borrowing heavily from the formula of sport and entertainment that has underpinned Twenty20 cricket’s considerable success.
“It was brilliant, it was exciting. Tonight came down to the last event and I think everyone in the track and field world really enjoyed this,” Bolt, who was paid a seven-figure sum to run in Melbourne and was given a stake in the Series, told reporters on the track.
