Lightning Bolt set to strike twice

"I was trying to see if I could take all the rounds," Bolt said after his 100m triumph.

"I've shown I can take it so I'm going to run the 200m.

"I'm not really worried about world records," he added. "I'm just coming here to win. That's the aim for me."

That's not to say he will not give it a full shot.

"It's my last individual event and I want to leave it on the track," Bolt said ahead of the semi-finals.

As well as revising records, Bolt has changed the perception of what a sprinter should be. While Johnson was a more conventional compact size, Bolt is outsize in every sense. When both he and compatriot Asafa Powell came off the track through the mixed zone, the normally powerful Powell was made to look diminutive by the younger man.

Over the longer sprint, Bolt is unbeaten and possesses the three fastest times in the world this year.

His 19.67sec time in Athens propelled him to fifth on the all-time lists and his victories in London (19.76) and Ostrava (19.83) were similarly impressive.

In those runs - and as was clear in his 100m performance at the Beijing Games - Bolt seems to hold some in reserve, which also raises the prospect of him being a real challenge to American Michael Johnson's world record of 19.32sec, set at the 1996 Atlanta Games.