Mills plans to stop working with the national team so he can concentrate more time on coaching Bolt and his clubmates.

 

He said: "I feel that after being head coach for every World Championship team, except the inaugural one [in 1983] and the one in 2003, and every Olympic Games since 1988, that's a good run, and the crowning glory in Beijing.

 

"It's good to quit while you're ahead."
 

Howard Aris, the President of the Jamaica Amateur Athletics Association (JAAA), said the announcement did not come as a surprise.
 

He said: "As far back as five or six years ago when I took over as President it has been discussed."

 

Mills replaced the late Herb McKenley as national team head coach in 1987.
 

He said he as pleased Jamaica's track and field had achieved it highest level of recognition after winning 24 medals at the last two major global events - the Olympic Games in Beijing in 2008 and the World Championships in Berlin earlier this year.

Jamaican athletes won six gold medals in Beijing and seven gold in Berlin.

 

Jamaica won a total of 33 Olympic medals under Mills' guidance.
 

Mills considering retiring nine years ago after the Sydney Olympics because he felt was time then for someone younger to take over.
 

He said: "I took the decision then, that it was time to allow younger people to take up the mantle, but the then administration ask me to continue for a couple more years so that somebody could be groomed to take over."

 

Mills' main task at the moment is overseeing the return to training of Bolt (pictured), who has had an extended break since the end of the season, including visiting Kenya, where he adopted a cheetah as part of an environmental charity launch.

 

The sprinter, who first stunned the track and field world with world record runs of 9.69sec and 19.30 to capture the Olympics sprint 100 and 200 metres double, returned to shatter those marks by running 9.58 and 19.19 to take the World Championships titles.

 

Bolt still has some commitments to fulfill before he can begin training properly, including attending the International Association of Athletics Federations Gala in Monte Carlo on November 22.

 

Stephen Francis, Mills' great rival who coaches former world 100m record holder Asafa Powell, as well as world 100m hurdles champion Brigitte Foster-Hylton, said he would not be interested in the role of head coach because he works non-Jamaican athletes, including Britain's Simeon Williamson.

 

He said: "It would be very hypocritical if I were to accept a position as team coach of the Jamaican team.

 

"I believe that post is for someone with less personal interest.

 

"I have in the past strongly believed that people who coach a number of athletes, especially non-Jamaicans in a private capacity, should not be accepting positions on a national programme primarily because, well for me, I am really interested in how the athletes who I coach perform, and if I coach an athlete from Trinidad or from Bahrain, I am going to want my athlete to beat any Jamaican that I do not coach as a result of the whole athlete-coach thing.

 

"The truth of the matter is that I don't have the best interest of the Jamaican team members at heart.

 

"What I do have is the best interest of the people that I coach at heart.

 

"I have repeatedly in the past turned down offers and have told the JAAA that I will not be available for any such position because it's not fair to the athletes who are a part of the team, it is not necessary.

 

But some people, for whatever reason, have felt that they need to continue doing it.

 

"I don't do it and I don't see that changing in the future because as I said, I am going to want to see my individual athletes who I coach from whichever country beat whichever Jamaicans they are up against as long as I don't coach them [Jamaican athlete]."