Former world champion and the first athlete over 40 to break the mythical sub-10sec barrier over 100m, Kim Collins of St Kitts and Nevis, has called time on his lengthy and successful athletic career, saying there will be no coming back. Photo: Athletics Weekly

Coaching is one of the things on the mind of the now retired sprinter Kim Collins, centre. Photo: Getty Images/File

“This is it. I can't do it anymore. The body isn't able to do what it is supposed to do. But I am going out in peace — no low notes, no high notes. There will be no comebacks,” Collins told reporters after competing in the 60m heats at the IAAF World Indoor Championships in Birmingham, Great Britain on March 3, 2018.

Birmingham fans, as every athletics crowd has done for 15 years, roared the 2003 world champ to the rafters as he qualified for Saturday’s semi-finals.

Sadly, though, there was to be no farewell bow to his fans later as he withdrew just before the semis, reportedly with an injury.

According to Reuters, it was an anti-climactic end to an emotional day for the wispy figure who has been beating muscle-bound sprint heavyweights with his light touch for more than two decades.

Collins, who did jobs as a painter, labourer, bricklayer, disc jockey and security officer to pay his way while building his garlanded athletics career, even found himself being asked for advice by an awe-struck youngster 25 years his junior who was racing him in the adjacent lane.

Respect the sport

By some happy chance, a 16-year-old Maltese schoolboy Jacob El Aida, the youngest competitor at the entire championships, got drawn next to the oldest, Collins, and the teenager was not going to miss the chance to learn from the only sprinter to grace five Olympics.

“The most important thing is that you have to respect the sport,” Collins told the teenager who said he had grown up watching videos of the ageless one on YouTube.

“Most people don’t respect the sport and that’s why you see so many sprinters come and go. A lot win one medal and their career is over because they don’t know how to last and be good to the sport.”

Collins was always good to his sport, with never an inkling of suspicion surrounding him in a sprint world riddled by cynicism and doubt. So what next for the man who has devoted himself so assiduously to athletics?

“Well, first, I want to go home and roll around in the sun for like a week after being in so much cold,” he said of his stay in snowy Birmingham.

“But there’s a lot of things I’m working on. One would be coaching. I will start with that because that’s my love,” he added, reckoning that there might be a young athlete on his dual-island nation who would continue to fly the flag for Saint Kitts & Nevis.