World 400m champion Wayde Van Niekerk, who is expected to illuminate the rarely run 300m at the Racers Grand Prix, will be arriving in the island a week early to have training stints with Usain Bolt and the Racers crew.

Glen Mills, president of the powerful Racers Track Club, confirmed to the Jamaica Observer of Van Niekirk’s and his South African contingent’s plans.

“He will be coming in on the fourth of June and will be training with us in the evenings leading up to the meet,” said Mills.

Van Niekerk is the only man in history to have run sub-10 seconds for the 100m, sub-20 seconds for the 200m and sub-44 seconds for the 400m. He has personal bests of 9.98, 19.94 and 43.48 seconds, respectively.

The 23-year-old South African will train with the likes of the greatest sprinter of all time, Bolt, along with Yohan Blake, Kemar Bailey-Cole, Warren Weir, and Zharnel Hughes.

Van Niekerk, who is the second fastest over the 400m this season behind Olympic champion Kirani James of Grenada with a time of 44.11 and the fourth fastest of all time, is seen as the man who is best equipped to break Michael Johnson’s 17-year-old 400m world record of 43.18 seconds set in 1999.

Van Niekerk was quoted in a South African newspaper saying that he is hoping to pick up a few things from track guru Mills to shave some vital seconds off his personal best of 43.48 seconds.

Van Niekerk will line up in what is expected to be a hot and exciting 300m field, where he will come face to face with his great American rival Lashawn Merritt.

Merritt is the 2008 400m Olympic champion and the 2013 world champion, but has a fight on his hands, firstly from Kirani James of Grenada, the 2012 Olympic champion, and then Van Niekerk who defeated them both to be crowned 2015 world champion.

The South African is taking the 400m to another level with his superior speed, and Merritt has responded with a series of impressive 200m times with a personal best of 19.78 seconds, which is the fastest in the world this year. Van Niekerk’s 200m season’s best so far is 20.35 seconds.

But based on the current form of Merritt, the world 300m world record of 30.85 seconds held by Michael Johnson could be under serious threat.

Merritt has a personal best of 31.30 seconds behind Usain Bolt’s 30.97, while Van Niekerk’s best is 31.63 second established last year.

The 300m race will also see Americans Bryshon Nellum (32.07) and Tony McQuay (43.40), and possibly Isaac Makwala of Botswana with personal bests of 19.96 and 43.72 seconds over the 200m and 400m, respectively.

— Howard Walker