TRACK and field analyst Leighton Levy says today’s final of the men’s 100-metre event at the IAAF World Championships in Beijing, China, will be sprint great Usain Bolt’s biggest test of his career.

Bolt, whose season’s best is 9.87 seconds, will today take to the Bird’s Nest track — site of his first trio of Olympic Games gold medals (100m, 200m and 4x100m relay) in 2008 — for the semi-finals and expected final of the 100m.

The 29-year-old Jamaican has won every international 100m title contested over the past seven years, with the exception of the 100m at the 2011 World Championships in Republic of Korea when he was disqualified for a false start.

His main rival in Beijing is Justin Gatlin, the American who tops the list of fastest times this year with 9.74 seconds, 9.75 twice, and 9.78.

Gatlin, 33, was timed fastest in yesterday’s heats, but his smooth 9.83 seconds was assisted by a wind of 2.1m/s. Bolt ran a fairly comfortable 9.96s against a -0.2m/s wind.

“We are going to have a war in the final and I think it’s going to come down to execution. This is basically the biggest test Usain Bolt will ever face in his career,” Levy told the Jamaica Observer yesterday.

“Justin Gatlin is running virtually perfect every single time he takes the track. Bolt cannot afford to be less than close to perfect. He needs to be close to perfect to be able to beat Gatlin. If Gatlin gets away from him midway through the race [the acceleration phase], that’s it,” declared the respected journalist.

After viewing yesterday’s 100m heats where Bolt looked untroubled to clock 9.96 seconds, Levy said there is still some room for improvement in the Jamaican’s race.

The veteran track analyst said the tall sprinter’s start, usually his weak point, could use some fine-tuning. Still, he said Bolt looked better than he did just ahead of the Championships when he twice ran 9.87s at the London Diamond League.

“Usain Bolt is looking a lot better than he did in London. I thought his race wasn’t perfect, but you did see elements where his race was coming together. I think we’ll see more of that coming together in the semi-finals, but I wasn’t very disappointed about this performance because 9.96s with a -0.2 m/s wind suggests we are about to see something special from Usain Bolt.

“His start wasn’t as linear as it should have been, therefore he didn’t get as much forward momentum as he would have wanted, which would have affected his initial speed. Though obviously he wouldn’t have wanted to run faster than he did because they all want to conserve for the semis and final,” Levy reasoned.

–Sanjay Myers