Jamaica’s 40-Year-Old Asafa Powell Retires
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Powell has retired with one Olympic gold medal which he won at the Rio 2016 Olympics in the 4x100m relay category
Jamaican sprint legend Asafa Powell, who is a former 100m world record holder and has been crowned the World Athletic champion four times, declared in a Twitter post that he has finally retired. This comes shortly after his 40th birthday which was on November 23rd.
He set his first 100m world record of 9.77 seconds back in 2005 before reducing it to 9.74 seconds in 2006 during a Diamond League tournament that took place in Gateshead, Britain. It did not end there as he went on to break his record on two other occasions. It was not until May 2008 that fellow Jamaican Usain Bolt broke the record when he marked 9.72 seconds. Bolt later became the first athlete to mark less than 9.7 seconds when he broke his record at the 2008 Olympics in Beijing where he recorded 9.69 seconds and won the gold medal.
Between 2004 and 2008, Powell bagged four 100m World Athletics titles defeating American Tyson Gay in three events. Bolt dominated the 100m race ever since he made his 2008 record and unlike Powell, he secured both an Olympic gold and a world championship gold medals.
Powell had to step down from the 2013 World Athletics Championships after he tested positive for the banned substance oxilofrine. He explained that he had taken the substance unknowingly. Oxilofrine is frequently abused for adrenaline boosts which helps improve one’s heart rate, focus, endurance and alertness.
Powell has retired with one Olympic gold medal which he won at the Rio 2016 Olympics in the 4x100m relay category. He boasts of marking less than 10 seconds 97 times throughout his career. His last race was in May 2021 where he marked 10.07 seconds in the 100m race.
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