PICK OF THE DAY Athletics: Men's 100 metres final, Olympic Stadium, tomorrow, 9.50pm:HERE IT comes again – out on its own. Don't just believe the hype about this one, double it, then add a little bit on, because not since eight men raced each other in Seoul 24 years ago has there been this much talk about an Olympic 100 metres.

If you don’t believe it, you might want to be on a different planet just before 10pm tomorrow evening. If you don’t believe me, then try walking two minutes through Olympic Park without hearing someone talking about it: Bolt or Blake? The Beast or the Lightning Bolt? What a difference four years makes. If Usain Bolt had it all his own way in Beijing, and threatened to dominate the event a year later, it’s suddenly become a little too close to call, with four of the fastest men on earth potentially lining up for tomorrow’s final, presuming they all come through the heats.

The big boys get under way shortly after noon today, with the semi-finals tomorrow evening, just over two hours before the final showdown. Assuming Bolt does get there, and there is plenty of talk that the recent back injury is more serious that even he knows, then the men he’ll have to get past in the final begins with countryman Yohan “The Beast” Blake.

Still only 22, Blake took the world title in Daegu last summer, after Bolt false-started, although that was a mere warning sign: he then beat Bolt in both the 100m and the 200m at the Jamaican trials in June, and to underline that form, clocked 9.85 seconds in Lucerne on July 17th.

With Asafa Powell also in the form of his life, Jamaica could provide the first sweep of the medals in 100 years, when an American threesome took the podium in Stockholm in 1912. Americans Justin Gatlin and Tyson Gay will almost certainly have some say in that.

For Bolt, who turns 26 later this month, the road to London has gone a little off course since he crashed his BMW on his way home from a Kingston nightclub in June. That, reportedly, is the source of his back problems, and could well hinder his start to the extent that he mightn’t even get a proper shot at beating Blake.

There was no such talk when he showed up at a packed news conference in London last week, especially when asked was he worried about his start: “The more I focused on it, I think the worse it got,” he said. “So I sat down with my coach. He said stop worrying about the start and compete. That is the plan. Forget the start and the race right.”

The suspect weather conditions might well rule out any improvement on his 2009 world record of 9.58 seconds, but he’s not worried about that either: “For me, it is all about the win. I am not really worried about a world record now. But if I am leading you are not going to pass me. It is not overconfidence. I know what I can do.”

If Bolt pulls it off, he’ll become the first man to defend his Olympic title since Carl Lewis’s 1984 success in Los Angeles, followed by his victory in Seoul four years later – albeit after Ben Johnson’s doping bust.

Blake comfortably beat Bolt and Powell in their Olympic trials with his personal best time of 9.75, but should the Jamaicans somehow mess up then Gatlin, the 2004 gold medallist back from his drugs ban, and Gay, the 2007 world champion, won’t be far off.

AND NOT FORGETTING . . .

Men's 10,000 metres final, today, 9.15pm, Olympic Stadium

Pardon the obvious bias here, but if like me you've been looking forward to this race for the last four years then expect true fireworks on the track. Hometown boy Mo Farah (right) takes on Kenenisa Bekele, trying to stop him from becoming the first man to win three consecutive titles.

At 30 Bekele's best years might be behind, but he won't surrender this without a savage fight.

Even one year ago, after his high-profile DNF at the World Championships, he came back with gusto in Brussels clocking a sensational 26:43.16.

Farah hasn't actually raced over 10,000m on the track this year, but there are plenty others capable of spoling the show for them both, including Wilson Kiprop, Kenya's world leader with the 27:01.98 he ran in June.