Asafa Powell wants to come out of retirement 

When Asafa Powell retired from top-flight athletics last November on turning 40, seemingly gone was the dream of going where no man had gone before — not even the showstopping Usain Bolt, his illustrious fellow Jamaican.

Spanish Town’s finest son had become tired of the gruelling training schedule which had punished his body over a largely successful 20-year career that has brought a host of trinkets, including Olympic gold and two world titles in the 4x100 metres relay.

He and his wife, Alyshia, have embarked on a successful business partnership in growing The Powells YouTube vlog, but there remains a significant itch to scratch — getting to a century of sub-10sec 100 metres races!

Stuck on 97 since September 1, 2016 — a 9.94sec in a Diamond League final at the Zürich Weltklasse meet in Switzerland was his last — Powell, who is on island to run in the relay at the USATF Bermuda Grand Prix today, expresses a new-found motivation to do the unthinkable.

For context, Kim Collins, of St Kitts & Nevis, is the only 40-year-old ever to run sub-10 when he achieved the feat with 9.93 in Germany in May 2016 — and he did so only once before retiring at the end of the 2018 season.

“I’ve been back and forth thinking about if I should come back because I honestly miss the sport; I miss competing,” Powell told The Royal Gazette in an exclusive interview hours after arriving on the late flight from Miami.

“What I don't miss is training, but I’ve been doing a lot of training and I am still deciding if I want to touch back the track. I’m very motivated to come back, but it’s just really finding that energy that I need.

“I’m at 97 sub-10s. My main goal that I’ve always wanted to accomplish was to get 100 sub-10s. So to get back in the sport, that would be the focus — not to come and do anything special, like winning an Olympics or anything like that ... just to get some sub-10s.”

Clearly, Bermuda in May is not the occasion for such lofty goals, so Powell’s motivation for being here is part-athlete, part-ambassador while getting through the relay at 2.45pm with his body intact.

“It is really just to let my presence be felt,” the two-times former world record-holder said. “Just to come here and let the Bermudian crowd see me and get to experience what it’s like to see athletes like us on the track. All these years, we’ve been competing around the world, but we have never been to Bermuda. To come here for the first time is really exciting and I want to show Bermuda what athletes of my calibre do on the track, what we look like.”