Michael Johnson says he wouldn’t backed himself against Usain Bolt

DAEGU (Sporting Alert) — Former 200-metres world record holder Michael Johnson believes the current world’s fastest man Usain Bolt would have been difficult for him to beat over the half-lap discipline.

Johnson, who held the previous 200m world record at 19.32 seconds, set in 1996 at the Atlanta Olympic Games, saw his world record lowered by .02seconds at the Beijing Olympics in 2008, and then watched Bolt shattered that mark again in Berlin, when he ran 19.19secs a year later.

The American four-times Olympic gold medallist was on site again to see Bolt defended his world title in a blistering 19.40 in Daegu, on Saturday and he admits that he would not back himself against the Jamaican.

Asked if he would have loved to run against Bolt, Johnson took a pause and then said: “Um…maybe not.”

Johnson, however, added: “I don’t get too caught up into whether I would won have the race or if Bolt would have because I was always focused on the people I had to run against and then just focused at the end of my career on running the fastest possible times I can run and I think that’s where Bolt is at this point.”