ASAFA Powell, Jamaica’s fastest man over the 100m this season, will lock horns with the world’s fastest man this season Justin Gatlin in the short sprint at the final IAAF World Challenge meeting in Rieti, Italy, this morning (Jamaican time).

Powell and compatriot Nesta Carter, both of whom have run some of their fastest times on this track, will be joined by Jamaican 200m specialist Rasheed Dwyer and Jacques Harvey to contest the event.

Five other Jamaicans, including Commonwealth Games 400m champion Stephanie-Ann McPherson, will also be in action at the meet.

Powell’s first world record in the 100m 9.74 seconds was set at this meet in 2007, while Carter’s personal best 9.78 seconds also came on this track and they will run in the second of two first-round heats.

Dwyer, the Commonwealth Games 200m champion, and Harvey will face Gatlin and Frenchman Christophe Lemaitre in the first semi-final heat.

Thirty-two year-old Gatlin is coming off one of the greatest one- day doubles ever after running a personal best and world-leading 9.77 seconds in the 100m and 19.71 seconds in the 200m, his second- best lifetime effort, both races about an hour apart at the IAAF Diamond League meeting in Brussels on Friday.

Powell, who ended a six-month drug ban earlier this year, has a season’s best 9.87 seconds set at a meeting in Texas in late-August and also ran 9.95 seconds for third behind Gatlin Friday in Brussels.

Carrie Russell is the only Jamaican woman in the 100m and will compete against Bahamas’ former World Junior champion Anthonique Strachan, Bulgaria’s Ivet Lalova and Ecuador’s 2014 World Junior Championships double sprint medallist Angela Tenorio.

Rusheen McDonald and Edino Steele, both 400m runners, will be part of a special 300m race on the programme.

McPherson, who is coming off a season’s best 50.12 seconds on Friday when she finished second behind American Sanya Richards Ross and Commonwealth Games bronze medallist Christine Day, will fly the Jamaican flag in the 400m.