Bolt successfully defended his Olympic 100m, 200m and 4x100m crowns at last year’s Rio de Janeiro Games.
Bolt, along with a number of South Africans, elected to opt out of the IAAF World Relays Championship in Bahamas this weekend, as he wants to remain injury-free before the IAAF World Championships in London, where he will retire.
It appears Bolt will be watching the South African athletes in Potchefstroom, as he sent a “shout out” to the SA stars ahead of the much-anticipated championships.
“S/o to South African national for athletics on this week. @WaydeDreamer you know I’ll be watching #FillupPotch,” Bolt told his 4.6 million Twitter followers.
The hashtag #FillUpPotch has dominated social media this week in South Africa, as athletes encouraged fans to come out and support the event on Friday and Saturday.
Some of the epic battles anticipated include the title of the fastest man in South Africa, as Akani Simbine will line up against Van Niekerk, Anaso Jobodwana and Gift Leotlela in the 100m and 200m events.
Controversially, the championships will not be broadcasted live on the country’s national broadcaster, SABC, who will instead offer a one-hour highlights package later in the day on SABC 2.
The SA senior national championships at the McArthur Stadium start on both Friday and Saturday at 12:35.
Entrance R50.
Ed Note. Attempts to obtain confirmation if Bolt was in the country proved unsuccessful as Hezekiel Sepeng from ASA, did not respond on time for a comment.
