JAMAICA'S WORLD 100 metres record holder, Asafa Powell, believes that to be considered great, he will have to win major titles.

Asked by journalists at yesterday's World Athletics Final press conference what was most important - running fast or collecting that major title, he said the latter.

"If you look back at all the great athletes, like Maurice Greene, who has the world records, the world championships, the Olympic title, I guess I have to have something like that to be one of the greatest athletes in the world," Powell said.

In his short career so far, Powell who ran 10.7 at Champs in 2001, is now listed as one of the world's fastest man, along with American Justin Gatlin, who he shares the world record of 9.77 with.

However, Powell has run 9.77 three times in the past 14 months. He has also run 26 times under 10 seconds, and a few weeks ago achieved the record for the most sub-10 seconds clocking in a single season, 11 in total.

Hard work

Asked how he's managed to run consistently fast all season long and remain undefeated, he was quick to point out "hard work".

"We, top athletes, we only compete once a week. We train a lot of the time. It's just a lot of hard work. Years back I couldn't really do this because I wasn't taking training seriously," he said.

"I was playing around in practice so by the time the season was almost done, I was way down, way behind. But this season I put in a lot of hard work. I set a big goal for myself and that's where I'm going."