RIO DE JANEIRO, Brazil (AFP) – Usain Bolt aims for an unprecedented “triple triple” of Olympic athletics golds here Friday as Jamaica aims to seal their sprinting supremacy on the track.

Bolt, who is expected to anchor the team, will complete a third straight sweep of the Olympic sprint medals if Jamaica win the 4x100m relay on Friday, following Thursday’s win in the 200m.

Jamaica’s women are also chasing a sweep in the same events, with 100m and 200m champion Elaine Thompson seeking her third gold in the women’s 4x100m relay. Bronze medallist Shelly-Ann Fraser-Pryce is expected to run the anchor leg.

A victory for Bolt, 29, will see him sign off from the Olympics in style. He has vowed to retire after next year’s World Championships.

Bolt insisted that he has done enough to be ranked alongside sport’s top heroes Pele and Muhammad Ali. “I am trying to be one of the greatest. Be among Ali and Pele.

“I hope after these Games I will be in that bracket.”

Certainly a triumph in the relay would further his claim to “greatest” status, which has been building since he won the 100m, 200m and relay golds in Beijing in 2008 for his first treble.

Bolt can join American Frank Wykoff (1928, 1932, 1936) as the only athlete to win three gold medals in the men’s 4x100m relay. He would join Finland’s Paavo Nurmi and American Carl Lewis on a record nine Olympic athletics gold medals.