Rome Gala dedicated to Mennea

World athletics chiefs will dedicate the Golden Gala meet in Rome this June, when sprint star Usain Bolt will compete, to Italian great Pietro Mennea, according to the IAAF on Thursday.
Mennea, the gold medal winner in the 200m at the 1980 Moscow Olympics who held the world record in the event for 17 years, died in a Rome hospital last week at the age of 60 from an as yet unnamed incurable disease.
Mennea won the 200m ahead of Jamaica's Don Quarrie when he competed in the first edition of the Golden Gala, a meeting designed to unite East and West in the wake of the American boycott of the 1980 Olympics, in 1980.
The International Athletics Federation (IAAF) said Friday "the 2013 edition of the Golden Gala -- the fifth leg of the 2013 IAAF Diamond League -- will be dedicated to the memory of Italian sprint legend Pietro Mennea".
With six-time Olympic champion Bolt competing in Rome for the third consecutive year, the IAAF said "the presence of the Jamaican legend will be the perfect way to remember Mennea."