Bolt sends out another warning

Jamaica's Usain Bolt, the 100m world record holder, on Sunday ran the sixth fastest 200m of all time at the Grand Prix meeting here to increase the pressure on his Beijing Olympics sprint rivals.

Bolt clocked 19.67sec to improve on his year's best performance of 19.83 set four weeks ago in Ostrava in the Czech Republic.

The 21-year-old set the new 100m world record of 9.72sec in New York in May and his form on Sunday showed that he is poised to become the first man since Carl Lewis in 1984 to win an Olympic 100m-200m double.

His run here in the 2004 Olympic stadium came despite an unfavourable wind.

However, he is keen to dampen expectations that he is likely to smash Michael Johnson's world record of 19.32sec which was set at the 1996 Olympics.

'That's really tough to beat. Maybe next year,' said Bolt.

Of his current 200m rivals, only Americans Tyson Gay (19.62sec), Xavier Carter (19.63) and Wallace Spermon (19.65) have run faster but only Spermon will run the event at the Olympics.

Gay was injured in the quarter-finals of the American trials while Carter did not feature in the final.

'I still have work to do,' said Bolt. 'My coach saw the race on television and said there's a fault to rectify.'

Bolt has plenty of time to iron out the problems ahead of the  Olympics as he plans to race the 100m in Stockholm on July 22 and a  200m in London four days later before heading to China.

Meanwhile, Cuba's Dayron Robles, the 110m hurdles world record holder, clocked the season's fourth-best time of 13.04secs.

But Qatar's double world 3,000m steeplechase champion Saif  Saaeed Shaheen suffered a setback in his Beijing build-up when he  was forced to pull out of the race three laps from the finish.

In the high jump, Sweden's Stefan Holm leapt 2.37m, the best performance outdoors this year although the Olympic champion failed in three attempts to clear 2.40m.

In the women's programme, America's Sanya Richards just missed a season best in the 400m as she won in 49.86sec while Jamaica's Veronica Campbell-Brown took the 100m in 10.92sec.