Usain Bolt to miss Commonwealth Games, says coach

Bolt has set the two fastest 200m times this year

Double Olympic and world sprint champion Usain Bolt will not compete at the 2010 Commonwealth Games in October.

Bolt, who missed the 2006 Games through injury, will be absent from Delhi to instead continue his ongoing build-up for the London 2012 Olympics.

And his coach Glen Mills said the 100m and 200m world record holder was always set to skip the Commonwealth Games.

"Bolt made it known long ago that he is not going to the Commonwealth Games," Mills told trackalerts.com.

Organisers still hope the Jamaican will make the event.

The Commonwealth Games' organising committee's chairman Suresh Kalmadi had suggested in 2009 that Bolt was certain to be the star attraction.

However, that was dismissed by Bolt's agent Ricky Simms, who said in January that the 23-year-old would probably miss Delhi to focus on London 2012 as well as the World Championships in 2011 and 2013 and this year's Diamond League meetings.

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Bolt has been nursing a minor Achilles tendon problem and missed last week's Diamond League meeting in New York, but Mills said that injury was not the reason for his absence from next week's Jamaican trials.

Bolt stunned the sporting world in August 2008 by winning the 100m and 200m Olympic golds in world record times in Beijing, and then repeated the feat at the 2009 World Championships in Berlin.

In Bolt's absence, Jamaican team-mates Asafa Powell and Omar Brown won the sprint events in Melbourne, though the winning times of 10.03 seconds and 20.47 do not bear comparison to Bolt's records of 9.58 and 19.19.

World champion heptathlete Jessica Ennis has already confirmed she will miss this year's Games, while Olympic gold medal winning cyclist Victoria Pendleton has said she could also skip Delhi because of scheduling complications.

The Games, which run from 3 to 14 October and feature 17 sports, will be broadcast by the BBC, with coverage on TV, radio, online, iPlayer and mobile.