Sprint stars struggle to fill Usain Bolt’s 100m shoes in Tokyo

If there is an obvious successor to Usain Bolt, then he hid awfully well in the heats of the men’s 100m on Saturday. 

Ahead of Sunday’s semi-final and final, it is less a question of who will stand out and more one of when they might wake up.

Only Andre de Grasse made any kind of dent on the clock, with the Canadian’s time of 9.91sec making him the quickest of the qualifiers. 

As the 2016 bronze medallist and a winner of six other global medals, he has emerged as a contender again at the age of 26 after a number of underwhelming years.

But the rest faltered on a hot night in Tokyo. The heavy favourite, Trayvon Bromell of the US, who ran 9.77sec last month, only crept through as a fastest loser in 10.05sec.

‘Shoot,’ said Bromell, who finished fourth in his heat. ‘I was calm. Honestly, I have no words for it. It don’t look like I actually pushed myself and that is going to be the thing my coach is mad about.’

With his reprieve, and assuming he has no concealed injuries, he is still the major threat in the coming two rounds. His team-mates Ronnie Baker and Fred Kerley were far more comfortable in going through automatically in 10.03sec and 9.97sec respectively. Commonwealth Games champion Akani Simbine of South Africa won his heat in 10.08sec.

The three Brits, Reece Prescod, Zharnel Hughes and CJ Ujah, all progressed, though Prescod needed to be saved as a fastest loser after a run of 10.12sec left him fifth. His performance ran counter to hype out of the British camp about his training performances.

Prescod said: ‘In terms of me, the last 10 days of camp have gone really well. I’ve been concentrating, I’ve been focusing on it. 10.12sec is a season’s best. The Olympics is now obviously a gear up and to be contending for the medals I need to be going 9.9.’