Opinion By Greg Robertson
Is this set to be the greatest race ever raced?
Lining up for the 100 metre final you’ll have these names grace the white lanes: Bolt, Blake, Gay and Powell.
It’s a ‘who’s who’ of sprinters, the four fastest men on the planet, ever, in one race.
Sporting annuals are littered with the great match ups – Frazier v Ali, Sampras v Agassi, Coe v Ovett… the list goes on. But this mouth-watering encounter is in a league of its own.
And although we may not see the world record tumble, the London weather may itself take care of that, we may just see the greatest contest.
There’s little doubt - barring injury or qualifying mishaps of the disqualification kind – that all four will be jostling their limbs and jumping up and down with an eerie sort of nervous anticipation as the starter calls to take their marks.
Jamaica’s Usain Bolt will have the fastest time among the four – the fastest time ever in fact of 9.58s. Bolt will be staring right down the track, focused on the job at hand and removed from his aloof track tendencies – this one’s by no means in the bag and he will have already run the race and won the gold 100 times in his head. His playfulness will come out after, should he show us his prowess.
But if he were to take a peek, if he indeed dared, Bolt would see danger on either side. His countrymen Asafa Powell (9.72s*) and Yohan Blake (9.75s*) on his left or right and probably breaking the trifecta of gold, silver and bronze for the island nation will be American Tyson Gay (9.69s*)… and that’s not to mention his compatriot Justin Gaitlin who has the fourth fastest time of the year.
Never in the era of electronic timing have all four of the fastest men in history been lined up for such a challenge at an Olympic games.
Enter, a dash of drama – defeat and injury.
Blake has beaten Bolt twice this year, both in the 100m and 200m. Blake has also the best time of the year, 0.01 seconds ahead of Bolt’s effort in May.
And just to cloud things and to add a fast-twitch muscle fibre of uncertainty, Bolt is training under injury, and in secret.
So who will light the Olympic flame is not the hottest Olympic topic by any means. Of far more interest to sports fans is what is the condition of Bolt’s right hamstring.
He’s seen the best sports doctors in the world and now – like all Jamaican athletes – the triple gold medalist is going through his paces but the world is on the wrong side of closed doors.
Not till the final will we see Bolt stretch out fully. He’ll canter, and he’ll qualify.
Only in the final, when the most famous sprinting faces raise their heads and await the gun, will the world know exactly what condition Bolt is in.
And only then will we know if Blake v Bolt et al will deserve its place among the fiercest of sporting legends.
* Denotes fastest time ever over the 100 metres
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