The world is looking forward to the Olympics to be held in Rio, Brazil, Friday August 5 to Sunday, August 21. It is absolutely amazing that for those 17 days this little island of Jamaica will command the attention of millions around the globe.

As the athletes get on their marks for the 100-metre final in the Joao Havelange Stadium on August 14, 10:25 am, the world will go quiet. You won’t hear a pin drop. All eyes on Usain Bolt. All eyes on Jamaica. Because the games are all about Bolt.

And why not? His face will appear on television screens and in the print media with increasing frequency as we draw near to August 5. He is breaking news, and as in Beijing, Berlin, and Britain, he is Brazil’s personality of the games. His hosts will be gambling everything on his performance to earn them a five-star rating for the tournament.

His showmanship is supreme. Nobody does it like Bolt. His familiar ‘shh’ gesture is a kind of code to his fans, a whispered “Hush, don’t tell them I am here.” Then, as he gets down to his mark he makes the sign of the cross and points a finger upwards as if to remind us, “Is not me, is Him”. And after going through the finish line first, he does his famous ‘Lightning Bolt’ pose to the world. All of this has made him an institution beyond athletics.

Remember, Bolt was only a boy of 17 when he made his Olympic debut in Athens in 2004. A hamstring injury took him out in the opening round of the 200 metres. Now 12 years on, he is the most decorated sprinter in the history of athletics.

So what can we expect this year? “Just to defend my titles, to do the ‘three peat’. That’s my main goal, that’s my main focus,” said Bolt recently. But having achieved that triple milestone twice, he is also looking beyond the tape. Bolt is not just going to Brazil to win another gold. He is aiming at a sub-19 seconds in the 200 metres. Were that to happen, Rio would erupt into a carnival not of its own making.

In the meantime, the world press is rolling out Bolt stories like confetti. Almost every article on the Olympics includes a quote, a prediction, a reference.

A prestigious British film company is reported to be filming a feature-length documentary on Usain, titled

I am Bolt. It will follow his journey through training in Jamaica, his Diamond League performances wherever he decides, his achievements in Rio, and a follow-up on his retirement activities after the Olympics (if he does retire).

The mainstream sports journalists leave nobody in doubt about where their confidence lies. Tom Fordyce, the chief sports writer at the Olympic Stadium, London, in 2012, didn’t mince his words.

“Usain Bolt emphatically confirmed his status as the greatest sprinter in history as he retained his Olympic 100-m title in peerless fashion. His 9.63, just 0.5 seconds slower than his own staggering world record, capped a race in which seven men went under 10 seconds, with only the injured Asafa Powell failing to break the mark.”

Bolt had been beaten by Blake, you remember, at the Jamaica trials in June. Coming out of back and hamstring problems, he felt he was only 95 per cent fit by the time he got to London. “Well”, says Fordyce, “if he was only 95 per cent fit, then his world record of 9.58 could have gone like the wind had he been 100 per cent.”

This year Clare Balding, head of the

BBC‘s Olympic reporting team, says that “a Bolt victory over two-time drug cheater Gatlin in the 100-m would help to restore public confidence in the Games. It would make a lot of people happy.”

Certainly it will be no tea party for Jamaica. Fancy a 100 metres final on August 14 (set your clock at 10:25 am) with Bolt, Blake, Powell, Gatlin, Gay, and Andre Du Grasse from Canada. Just to see three Jamaicans line up for the planet’s premier race is enough to shiver your timbers. And with Gay and Gatlin marred by failed drug tests in the past, the world will agree with Balding that a Bolt victory will make a lot of people happy.

The honours are shared with our Jamaican female contingent of perhaps the most beautiful and attractive faces and personalities in athletics. The ladies’ sprint races may not carry the same weightings as the men’s in terms of popular attention and adulation. Nevertheless, all eyes and hopes will be on Shelly-Ann Fraser-Pryce as she leads the glittering star line-up of fellow Jamaicans Veronica Campbell Brown, Sherone Simpson, and Elaine Thompson, and American Carmelita Jetter.

Would you believe that this whole business of the Olympic Games started some 3,000 years ago? Written records from that period report that the ancient Greeks first staged the games in 776 BC as a competition for athletes from Greek-speaking countries across their empire. The games attracted large crowds and started as a one-day event until countdown to 684 BC when they were extended to three, then five days. Games were held every four years as done today, and included running, long jump, shot put, discus, boxing and equestrian events.

In 776 BC, a cook named Coroebus won the only event, a 192-metre foot race called the ‘Stade’ (hence the word Stadium) and went on to become the first Olympic champion in history. The great sprint rivalries of that period may have generated the same kind of excitement as in 2016, but for entirely different reasons.

It turns out that in the 720 BC games a runner named Oriphos won the ‘stade’ in a record time. What caused the excitement, however, was that his shorts fell off while running and he completed the event in his birthday suit. After that it became the norm for the athletes to compete in the nude. Out of discretion, however, women and children were no longer allowed to attend.

After Rome conquered Greece in the mid-second century, the games continued but, like Mr Oriphos’ shorts, the standards fell. In one notorious, and to me hilarious example, that decadent Emperor Nero entered a chariot race only to disgrace himself by declaring himself winner even after he fell off his chariot. Too much wine, perhaps.

In 393 BC the games were declared a pagan festival and banned by the Roman Christian leaders. 1,500 years later, in 1896, the games were revived as an international sporting event. Its growth has, on the negative side, created numerous challenges including doping and bribery. Nero’s behaviour was obviously not unique.

Back home we hear that the former government, and the present one, are making plans to rename the Trelawny stadium the Usain Bolt Sport Academy.

This would be most appropriate. Bolt drives past that complex on his way home, a short distance away. But the point has been made that the stadium would need to be upgraded and converted into something with more international appeal than an empty shell of a cricket bowl going to waste. This column has previously suggested that we may be able to encourage the Chinese — who built it in the first place — to help us create a modern, world-class international sports training centre worthy of the name Usain Bolt, where people from all over the world would come to train in track and field, swimming, football, cricket, boxing, gymnastics, basketball, netball, you name it.

Once and for all, a mega sports training complex in Jamaica with accommodation, a calendar of major international events, indoor and outdoor facilities, lecture halls, convention meeting space, making Jamaica a Mecca for sports development

Sports marketing moves to the next level when you have a world-class institution that can create and promote tourism and economic development through sports. The Bolt International Multi-Sports Complex would not only attract in-house trainees, but also serve up weekly events to suit Jamaican as well as overseas fans who would fly to the island for the event and hopefully fill our hotel rooms.

Sports marketing is a big part of the vaunted National Tourism Plan, but frankly we haven’t been seeing those major happenings that can engage visitors through sports on a regular basis with Brand Jamaica.

A Usain Bolt Stadium, marketed properly, would be a winner. Add in the name Beijing somewhere (or Berlin, Britain or Brazil) and tap into the investment.

– Lance Neita is a public and community relations consultant and writer. Comments to the Observer or to lanceneita@hotmail.com