MICHAEL JOHNSON HAS warned Usain Bolt that he risks destroying his Olympic chances if he tries to emulate Carl Lewis’s four-gold haul in London next summer.
Bolt won 100m, 200m and 4x100m relay gold at the Beijing games in 2008, but said last week that he would like to compete in the 4x400m relay as well as defending his three sprint titles.
Without Bolt, Jamaica finished last in the 2008 Olympic final, and the 25-year-old insists that he can help them improve on that performance.
But speaking to BBC Radio 5 today, Johnson — who has four track golds of his own — said that Bolt would need to up his training over the longer distance in order to have any chance of matching Lewis.
And in doing so, he warned, the Jamaican could end up spreading himself too thinly.
“I see no reason why he shouldn’t be able to repeat as an Olympic gold medallist in the 100m, 200m and the 4x100m, but the 4x400m is going to be tough,” Johnson said.
“He can’t just step onto the track and run a 44 or a 43-second split just off 100 and 200m training.
In order to go out and run some 400s, and run them fast enough, that means he’s got to train for it, which is something he said he’s never going to do.
