Bolt will renew rivalry with Powell and Gay

BRUSSELS // Usain Bolt is gearing up for his most testing race since landing the 100 and 200metre Olympic crowns in tonight's Memorial Van Damme meeting in Brussels. Bolt will go head to head with arch rivals Asafa Powell and Tyson Gay in the last IAAF Golden League fixture of the season. Wilfred Meer, the event's organiser has pulled off a coup getting the trio to face one another over 100m and the confrontation could see Bolt's world record of 9.69 secs threatened by Powell.

Gay - last summer's world champion in both disciplines, who has just recovered from the hamstring injury which wrecked his Olympic ambitions - is unlikely to match the pace of the Jamaican duo. Although Powell failed to produce his best at a second successive Olympics, he has returned to action with a vengeance since returning to the European circuit. The former world record holder produced a time of 9.72 secs at the IAAF Super Grand Prix earlier this week - a time which only Bolt has bettered.

"Asafa Powell is a great athlete," said Bolt, who also broke the 200m meeting record with a time of 19.63secs in Lausanne. Bolt, who was beaten by Powell in their pre-Olympics clash in Stockholm, admitted: "Now there will be more pressure for me, but I will do my best. "The most important thing for me is to end the competition staying injury free. "I hope I'm running up to my best. I will be prepared - I'm just thinking about the race. It doesn't matter if I don't have the world record because for me the Olympic medal means much more."

* PA Sport