Olympics 2012: Bolt must find his best to repel rivals

Even the Olympic cauldron knows its place. Shoved to the end of the Olympic Stadium in time for his grand entry in today's (Saturday's) 100 metres, centre stage now belongs purely to the Honourable Usain St Leo Bolt OJ, CD, and the world awaits his wonders once again.

London expects. It expects Bolt to own these Games. It expects Bolt to blow minds as he did in Beijing and Berlin. It expects him to deliver the single most fantastic achievement in the Games annals by, uniquely, defending the 100m, 200m and sprint relay crowns he won four years ago.

So no pressure then, Usain. First, the good news for all those who would once again wish to see a man fly; he does not seem exactly encumbered by stress at all by the expectation. In Birmingham, where the Jamaican team trained, he sent his driver out to buy some chicken nuggets for him and a local Brummie kid who had been helping the squad. Only Usain.

Then down in London with the world's press in his face, he just lounged back on stage, long lollopping legs stretched out, giggling about condoms in the village and guffawing like a schoolboy at being asked if he was feeling gay. Man, pressure, what pressure?

Yet beneath all the chilled charm, how is he really bearing up? He carries his sport like Atlas but this year has looked to be slightly buckling under the weight. Never before in four years of redefining the boundaries of athletics has he seemed quite this vulnerable.

He had a dismal off night in Ostrava, when he ran his slowest 100m as a senior; he was beaten in his national trials by his training partner Yohan Blake over both 100m and 200m; and he has had the odd injury niggle too.

Yet listen to those close to he Jamaican camp, who say the great man is soaring again in training, and there appears to be a refusal to countenance the idea that this 100m is anyone else's race to win.

Justin Gatlin, the American champion, crystallises this theory with the bold statement: "The only person that can beat Bolt is Bolt."

Tyson Gay, the second fastest man in history, backs this up with the claim: "I don't really want to say he's vulnerable. This guy has definitely proved he can run 9.5, 9.6, 9.7. He's the only guy who's been where we haven't been."

These are just mind games. Both the Americans, world champion Blake and Jamaica's third man Asafa Powell must also know that we have not seen the very best of Bolt now since he obliterated his own world records in Berlin three years ago, clocking 9.58?sec for 100m and 19.19?sec for 200m.

In 2010, he struggled with injuries and, by all accounts, took his eye off the ball in training in a non-global championship year. Also, last year,

he false-started in the world 100m final, perhaps triggered into disqualification by understanding the urgent need to beat the 'beast' Blake out of the blocks.

Even his subsequent 200m triumph in Daegu in 19.30?sec, surely his finest performance since Berlin, was subsequently made to look just a

little less stellar by Blake's incredible 19.26sec effort in Brussels. The point is that while the popular assumption is that Bolt will win if he is his old self, there have only been rare sightings of that winged, almost mythical creature.

And in Blake - the 22 year-old who sees Bolt every day on the University of West Indies track, and maybe gnaws inside his head - he has an opponent who, while offering in public the utmost respect to his elder, has no fear and may genuinely believe he has his master's measure. Not only has he beaten him twice this season; his 9.75?sec in Kingston - Bolt was well adrift in 9.86?sec - is still the best performance of the year.

Their respective performances suggest Bolt is standing still while Blake, who started the season having clocked a best of 9.82 sec, has only been getting faster. He has looked a more reliable, sharp starter than Bolt and, for that matter, Gay, whose constant fight with injuries seems to have taken a toll on his ability to explode from the blocks.

You cannot rule out Gay in the way you can count out Powell, the gifted soul who still looks as if he does not believe in himself. The American is still spurred by failing to make the final in Beijing when he was double world champion. "I have a lot of driving force coming into these Games. I really feel the missing piece of my heart is an Olympic medal," he says.

There is an obsessive look about Gatlin too, with his big race temperament and 2004 win in Athens demanding respect. "It is a mission now, it is not a dream, not a goal," he said, offering a message to chill Olympic chiefs whose nightmare scenario would be to see their blue riband event won by a man who served a four-year ban for a serious doping offence but who has never admitted culpability.

Nothing would illuminate these Games quite like another chest-thumping, showboating sprint for the stars from the thunderbolt. Yet, though it almost sounds heretical, on form alone, you would have to make Blake the man to beat come tomorrow's (Sunday's) final. Only on reputation is there no contest - but can we really rely on the old Usain Bolt, the real Usain Bolt, to stand up?