Is Usain Bolt still the world’s fastest man?

Combination of images shows , from left, the United States' Justin Gatlin, Jamaica's Usain Bolt, the US' Tyson Gay and the US' Ryan Bailey competing in the men's 100m heats at the athletics event of the London 2012 Olympic Games on August 4.

It’s been four years since Usain Bolt announced himself as the world’s fastest man, and plenty has happened since.

He’s become the richest track-and-field athlete in history, with Forbes estimating his annual income around $20 million. He’s become the most famous track-and-field athlete by far, his picture plastered on billboards around the world and on the ubiquitous double-decker buses that serve the British capital. Oh, and he’s picked up a nasty habit of losing races.

Tyson Gay, a U.S. rival, beat him in 2010 in Stockholm. Bolt beat himself in 2011, false-starting out of the 100 metres at the world championship. And as for Yohan Blake — not only did he win the world title in Bolt’s absence, he underlined that it was no fluke at June’s Jamaican Olympic trials. Blake is Bolt’s countryman and training partner and friend. At the trials, he was also his clear superior, beating him in both the 100m and 200m in the span of three days.

So, while Bolt was almost alien in his dominance in Beijing when he won the 100m and the 200m in world-record times and then anchored Jamaica’s 4x100m relay squad to another world best, he has looked far more human in the ensuing four years.

All that makes for an irresistible storyline when the eight fastest men in the world line up at Olympic Stadium on Sunday. This quadrennial’s edition of track and field’s blockbuster event, which is always worth a little less than 10 seconds of your time, promises to offer the resolution to one of history’s great cliffhangers. Exactly what we’ll see is anyone’s guess.

Certainly there wasn’t much to be gleaned from Saturday’s preliminary heats. While Bolt brought his usual pre-race dramatics — crossing himself, pointing at the sky, waggling an index finger while mouthing the words, “Number 1, baby” — he didn’t bring anything close to full-speed exertion. He won his heat in 10.09 seconds. But he stumbled a little out of the blocks, sprinted for something that looked like 50 or 60 metres, then promptly cut the engines and eased the rocket back to earth.

“He was jogging. Just jogging,” was the assessment of Markham’s Justyn Warner, Canada’s fastest man.

Certainly Warner is humble enough to know his place in sprinting’s hierarchy. Though the Olympic rookie ran a personal best of 10.09 — his previous mark was 10.15 — he acknowledged that his accomplishment had required considerable effort. His goal now is to make Sunday’s final, which he acknowledged would require the first sub-10-seconds performance of his life. Still, whether he achieves that goal or not, he’ll come away from London with something he’ll be able to tell the grandkids with no word of a lie: I ran the exact same time as Usain Bolt at an Olympics.

“Bolt ran 10.09. I ran 10.09. And I had to put in the work to do it,” Warner said, shaking his head a little. “He’s phenomenal.”

He’s phenomenal, but recent performances suggest he’s hardly a no-brainer favourite. Bolt has battled injuries to his back and his hamstrings. He has battled the perception that a hard-partying, money-chasing lifestyle has taken a toll on his speed. (He does own a bar in his homeland, but he has insisted in numerous interviews that he rarely indulges in adult refreshments from its stock).

Still, the proof will be on the track. And there are more than a few track insiders who have publicly stated their opinion that Blake is the choice to win Sunday, among them Maurice Greene, the 2000 Olympic champion in the 100m, and Bruny Surin, the Montrealer whose career best time of 9.84 seconds makes him one of the 10 fastest men of all time.

“I talked to Blake (in July) and I can see that he’s ready psychologically,” said Surin in an interview. “He looked me in the eye and said, ‘I’m going to London to win the 100m, the 200m, and obviously the 4x100m relay. Period.’ From that time, I’m like, ‘Hmmm.’ He convinced me. That’s why I tend to say I think Blake’s going to get both.”

Bolt and Blake aren’t the only contenders. There’s Asafa Powell, their Jamaica relay teammate. And then there are U.S.-bred threats in Tyson Gay, Justin Gatlin and Ryan Bailey, the latter of whom ran a personal best 9.88 in Saturday’s heat, the fastest time of the day and one of the many indications that the track here, made by the Italian company Mondo, is built for world records.

“Crazy fast,” is what Bailey called it.

“Blazing,” was Warner’s word.

Sunday’s competitors will be careful not to be too fast out of the blocks. This will be the first Olympics in which the one-and-out false-start rule will be employed. If that should make for some jittery men in the blocks, Bolt said Saturday that he has given up obsessing about improving on his notoriously slow starts.

“We have come to the conclusion that we shouldn’t work on the start,” Bolt said, recounting discussions he has had with his coach. “We should just focus on the rest of the race like we always do. I’m working on the last 50 metres. That’s really my strongpoint. So that’s what I’m focusing on.”

What’s certain is that Bolt, if he is not the insiders’ favourite to win, is the world’s favourite to watch. Even Gatlin, one of Bolt’s U.S. competitors, conceded as much.

“He’s the equivalent of a guy walking on the moon for the first time. He’s done something that no one’s ever done before. When you’ve got to line up in the blocks shoulder to shoulder with this guy — you’re in awe sometimes,” Gatlin said. “I think that a lot of people, a lot of runners, almost have an audience mentality to see what he’s going to do, even when you’re running (against him).”

Gatlin can speak for himself. Four years after he stormed to triple gold, Bolt’s aura of invincibility has long vanished. But there’s no better place to restore it than at the finish line on Sunday, when a cliffhanger reaches its climax.