The 25-year-old Jamaican says he will run the 4x400m relay for the first time, as well as defending his titles in the 100m, 200m and 4x100m.

Speaking after he and Australian sprint hurdler Sally Pearson were named World Athletes of the Year by the International Association of Athletics Associations (IAAF) here he commented: "I will probably be in good shape and I know the guys are really stepping up the 400m level in Jamaica."

Lewis was the last athlete to earn four track and field golds at a single Olympics as he won the 100m, 200m, sprint relay and long jump at the 1984 Los Angeles Games, thus matching the exploits of his fellow countryman Jesse Owens at the 1936 Berlin Olympics.

Bolt has spoken frequently since 2008, when he broke through to win three Olympic golds, about becoming a "legend" in the sport.

After failing to retain his world 100m title this year following his disqualification for a false start in Daegu he finished strongly by retaining the 200m title and anchoring Jsmaica to a world record of 37.04sec in the sprint relay.


Bolt said recent Achilles tendon and back injuries had affected his ability to judge his starts effectively but that he was now pain-free.

And he insisted his Jamaican team-mates were improving in the 4x400m and said he wanted to help his country win the Olympic title for the first time since the 1952 Helsinki Games.

"If I can help to get them a gold medal, I will want to go on that team," he said.

"Injury-wise, I am great.

"I have no problem and I've started high-intensity training.

"I definitely would want to try because if I do as well as in Berlin [in 2009], the 4x400m would top it off and even make it much better."

Bolt was a prodigious 400m runner as a teenager, but has resisted a return to the event since because, as he has insisted usually with a wide grin, it is too much like hard work.

But the 25-year-old world 100m and 200m will have his work cut out for him over his specialist distances next year as he seeks to hold off his 21-year-old training partner Yohan Blake, who took the world 100m title in his absence and finished the year by running the 200m in 19.26sec, a time only beaten by Bolt's world record of 19.19.

"I've told Yohan he might get the 100, but I'm winning the 200," Bolt joked to the audience when interviewed at the IAAF Gala Dinner last night.

But he was serious in receiving the award for the third time, and asked everyone to join him for a moment's silence to remember Howard Aris, President of the Jamaican Amateur Athleitcs Association, who died unexpectedly on Thursday (November 10).

Australia's 100m hurdles world champion Sally Pearson, who became the first athlete from Oceania to win the IAAF honour since the awards were introduced in 1988, also took the opportunity to commemorate someone in her victory speech – in her case, her grandfather, who had died recently and had been hoping to see her run in the Olympics.

But the Australian added in more lighthearted fashion that she was sorry to have been late to the occasion at the Salle des Etoiles– "it seems I crashed a police function rather than an athletics function."

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