In only a matter of hours, it’s Bolt v Blake II. The final of the men’s 200m. Both men were the comfortably ahead of the pack in the heats – in some cases embarrassingly so. The last competitive 200m meet between the two took place at the Jamaican trials with Blake triumphing. However, Sunday’s emphatic 100m win by Bolt tends to suggest that there will only be one outcome tonight. Win this and Bolt will become the first man to successfully defend back to back 100m and 200m Olympic titles.

Blake, though, has tools aplenty to spoil the party. Watching him in the heats, he (like Bolt) seems to have raced completely at ease, but I think Blake has considerably more power in reserve. He is the owner of the second fastest time in history with 19.26s, which was set last September in a remarkable performance in Brussels. That night in Belgium, Blake came off the bend marginally behind Walter Dix and then absolutely blew him away in the home straight. What made the feat all the more impressive was that Dix crossed the line with an excellent 19.53s – making him the fourth fastest 200m runner ever – but finished almost 0.3s behind Blake. Blake’s time was an incredible, half a second improvement (unheard of in the sprinting world) on his previous personal best.

Going against the wise money, it would not be inconceivable that Bolt will lead off the blocks and the first 100m, with the ‘Beast’ storming through in the final 30 metres to take gold and maybe, just maybe, set a new world record in the process.