The 29-year-old - who showed he was in sparkling form running 9.88sec the second fastest time this year over 100m in Kingston, Jamaica last weekend - will run the 200m on the first day of the two day event, Friday 22 July.
“The London Anniversary Games will be one of my last races before Rio and running in the 200m will hopefully set me up for a successful Olympic Games,” said Bolt, who is the world record holder in the event as he is also in the 100m. “Great Britain has some very good young sprinters and I’m looking forward to running against them and returning to the Olympic Stadium,” added Bolt on the British Athletics website.
Bolt, who is thought to be set to lose one of his six Olympic golds the 4x100m relay won in Beijing in 2008 because of a failed dope test reportedly by teammate Nesta Carter, will be running in the London Diamond League event for the eighth time.
Bolt, who has four world titles in the 200m and three in the 100m, first ran at the meeting aged just 18 and holds the meeting record for the 200m of 19.76sec set in 2008 when it was held at Crystal Palace.
The meeting will come just weeks ahead of the Olympic Games in Rio de Janeiro, which run from August 5 to 21.
German athletics boss asks IAAF to see reform plans
German athletics association boss Clemens Prokop yesterday criticised the sport’s world ruling body IAAF for not presenting any reform plans for debate. “It is disappointing that there are still no concrete reform plans on the table,” the DLV president Prokop said.
The DLV boss made his statements three days before the IAAF rules on a possible 2016 Olympics ban for Russia’s track and field athletes. The IAAF has said it will meet behind closed doors until the end of the year to come up with new rules and structures to avoid scandals which have emerged under the office of former IAAF president Lamine Diack. “We proposed an extraordinary IAAF Congress, which will now take place in Monte Carlo in early December,” Prokop said.
“That is a victory on a sports politics level for the DLV because IAAF president Sebastian Coe initially did not want it. The next IAAF Congress had been planned for August 2017 in London. “I assume that we will submit some suggestions at the extraordinary congress, said Prokop, who believes many new measures must be taken. One of them is a two-term limit of four years each for the IAAF president. Prokop would also like to create an advisory council for the world body. “If a sports organisation behaves like a commercial enterprise, it should also be run like one,” the DLV boss said.
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