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On Saturday, with the temperature dropping slightly and the flag-waving of 91,000 people halted for a moment, eight men will take to their starting blocks for the most important race of these 29th Olympic Games.

8000 miles away, should Prisoner 84868054, Marion Jones be allowed a television set in her Texas cell, you would hope that she would be squirming with embarrassment.

Jones once dominated the 100m at the Olympic Games, even above the men, and now she might see how it is done properly.
Of those eight men, a quirk of fate has brought together the three quickest in history for their first meeting: Tyson Gay, the world champion; Asafa Powell, the former world record-holder; and Usain Bolt, the fastest man of them all.

"I am more excited about this Olympic final than when I was competing," says Donovan Bailey, the Jamaican-born Canadian, who won 100m gold in Atlanta in 1996. He triumphed in 9.84sec, the last occasion the world record was broken in an Olympic final.

Stand by for a rewriting of the record books. It is likely a Jamaican will become Bailey’s latest successor. In the space of three months, the tall, imposing figure of Bolt has brought a fresh wave of optimism to an event, let alone a sport in the doldrums. An athlete, who has progressed from spectacular junior to a senior, making gradual inroads at his chosen distance, the 200m, has suddenly found that he’s pretty nifty at the 100m, too. Never mind a bolt from the blue, this summer the 6ft 5in star has changed the perception of the two men who were most likely to challenge for Olympic gold before his emergence.

On a rainy night in New York at the end of May, Gay, who was 26 recently, finished second as Bolt, 21, broke Powell’s 100m world record of 9.74sec with a run of 9.72sec.
Powell, 25, says it has helped him because he no longer has the pressure of being favourite as he chases his first global title, while Gay ran a wind-assisted 9.68sec – illegal for record purposes – at the US trials to show he cannot be forgotten.

As for what Bolt thinks? "I am laid-back and I just take it all in my stride," he says.
What these three know is that the reputation of the 100m is on the line once more, and its biggest audience is watching the responsibility they are carrying in less than 10 seconds. As Powell says: "It upsets me when athletes go the other way, the wrong way, because there are athletes out there who compete with their natural ability, but when people say that athletes who run fast are on drugs, it is something you have to live with."

When America’s Jim Hines became the first man to run under 10 seconds with electronic timing when he took the Olympic title in Mexico 40 years ago, nobody could have imagined what lay ahead. 20 years later, Ben Johnson brought a disgrace to sprinting that has never really gone away as he won Olympic gold in Seoul and then tested positive for steroids.
Since Johnson, Bailey is the only Olympic 100m champion, who has not been linked with drugs or tested positive, and that is why he remains a respected voice. "If you get up everyday and you set yourself goals, and that is the limit that your body is going to take you to, then you can be satisfied with it," he says.

Just how satisfied Bolt is with his 100m record was easy to understand as he sat reminiscing about his youth, when Caribbean cricket was occupying his sporting mind before he chose to become an athlete. He had not been sufficiently interested in athletics to properly watch the 1996 Olympics in Atlanta, and only saw the 200m final in which Michael Johnson broke the world record in 19.32sec more recently on YouTube.

"It's amazing," says Bolt. "It’s an ambition of mine to run that fast over 200m, but I don’t know if it will happen. Michael is the greatest that there has ever been. I have put in so much technical work on the 200m over the years that it has become part of me."

As he continues to explain his devotion to a distance where he made his name as a record-breaking world junior champion in 2002, he laughs. He knows the reason. We are in the company of the quickest man to run the 100m, and he has not even talked about it. It is a raw and innocent dismissal of the blue-rib and event of the Olympics, but it is typical Bolt. On occasions, the 100m does not really seem to be on his radar; it is why he has become so dangerous at it.

The story begins on the first Saturday of May this year. His father, Wellesley, is driving him from the family home in Kingston to that evening's grand prix meeting at the national stadium and naturally they are chatting. "Why would we have spoken about the 100m world record?" asks Bolt. He was there to run the distance to test the speed and power in his mammoth legs early in an athletics summer for his main ambition: to win the 200m at the Olympic Games in Beijing.

He had raced over 100m only twice before. He had a personal best of 10.03sec and was never thought of as a player. By the end of the evening, world sprinting had been forced to sit up and take notice. Bolt had climbed awkwardly out of his blocks but picked up speed because of his incredible height to win in 9.76sec. It was the third-best time in history and, four weeks later, he had run the fastest ever.

While his coach, Glen Mills deliberated whether Bolt would double up here at the Olympics, it was always going to happen. He is the favourite, but because he runs the race technically so poorly, nobody can predict how fast he can go. His coach will not tell where he goes wrong. "He likes to keep me on edge," says Bolt. "He will give me hints during training, maybe about the way I position myself at the start or enter the drive phase, but he will not tell me exactly.

"One thing is for sure, the Olympic record will go," says Bailey. "But what you have to remember is that while Usain is the fastest among them, it is also him who has the most improvement to make. The guy is 6ft 5in, he ran 9.72sec with a mediocre start, a very good acceleration in the middle and he was shutting it down at the end. He can eclipse that mark by getting stronger and a little more technically sound. If he is as technically sound as Asafa or Tyson, he will be a man among boys."
Bailey believes that the outcome will be decided after about three seconds. "The race will be won at 30m," he says. "Asafa and Tyson cannot make a mistake in the first 30, Usain can. Tyson is war-tested and has won, Asafa is war-tested and has not, but he has no pressure at these Games. Usain is bigger and he clearly possesses the most speed."

Do not expect Bolt’s rivals to express any worries, though. "I haven’t had anxiety about the whole Olympics because I’ve been in rehab, so I think it’s really helped mentally," says Gay, who has been battling back after a hamstring injury forced him to pull up in the 200m at the US trials.

Powell says: "I am happier being the underdog. Tyson has beaten me only once in his life and I have beaten him over 100 times, but he won when it mattered (at the World Championships in Osaka). People are making it seem that Asafa is dead. People are making it seem like Asafa can’t run fast. Well, I can run faster than before."

It might be fast enough to win gold, and it might not. With Bolt around, it might be enough only for silver, but it will be something that cannot be missed. Let’s hope that Prisoner 84868054, who was sentenced for lying about her use of performance-enhancing drugs, is put to shame on the big night.