Powell THE WORLD'S fastest man, Asafa Powell, believes if he is to win next year's Olympic Games 100m title, he will have to stop focusing on his opponents.
While blaming lack of focus on his own race for his downfall at the 11th IAAF World Championships, Powell said to win a major title he would have to focus on his own race.
"But in the future, I would like to focus as less as possible on other athletes, I should focus on my own race. Only in that way should I be able to get my Olympic gold next year," Powell said.
Beaten into third by American Tyson Gay and Bahamian Derrick Atkins at the World Championships in Osaka last month, Powell returned to lower his own world record of 9.77 to 9.74 seconds at Rieti, Italy on Sunday.
"In Osaka, I was too tense," Powell told journalists yesterday at the press conference for today's Van Damme Memorial Golden League meet in Brussels, Belgium.
"I thought too much about my race and the time I was hoping to achieve," added the only man to have run sub-9.8 seconds five times.
Can lower record
He said Sunday's record run was due to the fact that "I was very relaxed. That means I could run 9.68".
The World Championships bronze medallist also believes he has it in him to lower the 9.74 done less than a week ago at today's meet.
"I know I can run faster than 9.74 because I sprinted at only about 90 per cent. I just also hope the starter doesn't give me problems like last year," Powell said.
Meanwhile, with only two meets to go, two athletes remain in contention for the US$1 million jackpot.
With today's Van Damme Memorial and Sunday's con-cluding ISTAF meet in Berlin concluding the Golden League season, only American 400m runner Sanya Richards and Russian pole vaulter Yelena Isinbayeva are still in the running for the big prize.
"I am smiling again," Richards said after reasserting her dominance over the 400 with a powerful run in Zurich last weekend.
Being eliminated
Isinbayeva, meanwhile, was one jump away from being eliminated from the lucrative race before escaping with victory in Zurich.
Richards and Isinbayeva have won their events in all four Golden League meets so far, and are going for the US$1 million (€720,000) bonus on offer for going six-for-six in the series.
They will split the money if they both finish with a perfect season.
