Exclusive – Without Usain Bolt athletics would have ‘disappeared without trace’, insists Daley Thompson

Usain Bolt has single-handedly saved athletics from oblivion.

That’s the view of double Olympic champion Daley Thompson, who provided a glowing tribute to the Jamaican sprint king on the Colin Murray show on Thursday morning.

Bolt, 29, has confirmed he is likely to retire following the 2017 World Championships in London, and Thompson insists the sport owes him a huge debt of gratitude.

“Usain Bolt is up there with the greatest athletes of all-time,” he said. “What he’s done within the sport in the last ten or 12 years has been unbelievable.

“Single-handedly he has held the sport above water, because there have been so many drug scandals and the like that I think without him it would be down there with tractor pulling and mud wrestling.

“He has been the life support machine for the sport.

"Other sports, particularly football, have got so big and hoover up so much television money and sponsorship and attract kids coming into sport, that I think without him, athletics would have disappeared without trace.”