KINGSTON, Jamaica – Olympic sprint champion Usain Bolt dropped out of a weekend track meet in Jamaica on Thursday after being lightly injured in a car crash.
Bolt hurt his left foot Wednesday when he stepped on thorns as he got out of the wrecked BMW, according to a statement from his agent, Ricky Simms. He said Bolt is out of the hospital and doctors have advised him to rest for a few days.
“We will continue to monitor his progress over the next few days,” Simms said.
Bolt will skip Saturday’s Kingston International as a precaution, and it is too early to say whether other races will be affected, Simms said. Bolt’s next scheduled competition is a 150-meter street race in Manchester, England, on May 17.
Bolt lost control of his BMW M3 on a highway and crashed in a ditch near Spanish Town, just west of the Caribbean island’s capital, Kingston. A police officer said it appeared that Bolt had been speeding.
An unidentified female passenger also escaped serious injury, police said.
The 22-year-old sprinter won three gold medals for Jamaica at the Beijing Olympics, all in world record times.
