The Jamaican sprint star Usain Bolt raced to victory in the 100 metre final at the Diamond League in Monaco with a season's best time of 9.88 seconds, overcoming a slow first half to pip compatriot Nesta Carter.
Bolt, the reigning world and Olympic double sprint champion, was down on most of the field at 50m but once his 'drive phase' kicked in, there was no stopping the 24-year-old, dressed in white singlet and black shorts.
In his third and final 100m of the season before the August 27th-September 4th world championships in Daegu, South Korea, Bolt could not afford to showboat as he sometimes does, and he even had to sneak a look across the line to see where Carter was.
Bolt stormed to Olympic gold at the 2008 Beijing Games in a world record time of 9.69 seconds and then bettered that to 9.58sec when winning the world title in Berlin a year later.
But the Jamaican has insisted that attaining that level would not be happening this season as he works on regaining his fluency and technique following a slowly-slowly approach to his comeback from injury.
American Michael Rodgers came in third in 9.96sec, with another Jamaican, Michael Frater, in fourth at 10.01, two-hundredths ahead of France's double European sprint champion Christophe Lemaitre.
