Bolt, millionaire sprint king too costly for Stockholm

Newly-crowned Olympic sprint king Usain Bolt has not been invited to the Stockholm Diamond League meeting because the Jamaican commands too great an appearance fee, according to organisers.

Meet organiser Jan Kowalski told the Expressen tabloid: “We’d get to saturation point if he were to run every year.

“We had talks with him but we thought ‘is it worth paying the price for him to come?'”

The absence of the world’s fastest man, who appeared at the Stockholm meet three times between 2009-11, was marked by many more empty seats in the stadium than usual, Expressen said.

Bolt earns between $200,000 and $350,000 in appearance fees and is one of the rich athletes in the world, commanding income of over $20 million yearly.