The Jamaican icon heads into the event here knowing that important work needs to be done if that ambition is to succeed.

Victory over 100 metres, ideally in his first sub-10 second timing of the season, is what the 30-year-old eight-time Olympic champion is looking for.

But, having spent the last two weeks in Germany having his perennially troublesome back problem - he has a curvature of the spine - treated by Dr Hans-Wilhelm Muller-Wohlfahrt, he needs to know he is able to put everything together technically in order to compete for a fourth world 100m title.

"I'm here to execute a good race, to work on a few things, to get myself perfect for when the big race comes, and that's in three weeks' time," he said.

 "I'm always expecting to win - the moment you doubt there's no point showing up."

This is the last big opportunity for the athletes involved to sharpen up for the World Championships in London between August 4 and 13, and indeed to secure their place in the IAAF Diamond League finals in Zurich and Brussels. 

The roster at the Stade Louis II is packed with talents such as Wayde van Niekerk, Mariya Lasitskene, Renaud Lavillenie and Caster Semenya.

In what was his first 400m since winning the Rio Olympic title in a world record of 43.03sec, South Africa's van Niekerk ran the fastest time of the year, 43.62, at the Lausanne Diamond League meeting on July 6.

He set a world 300m best of 30.81 eight days earlier in Ostrava.

The 25-year-old is now in that territory familiar to Bolt in that something extraordinary is expected of him every time he competes.

But he will need to be fully focused to hold off a field that includes the Botswana pairing of Baboloki Thebe, who has run a personal best of 44.02 this season, and Isaac Makwala, who clocked 43.92 in Madrid on July 14, becoming the first man to run a sub-44sec 400m and a sub-20sec 200m on the same day as he clocked 19.77 for the shorter distance.

Van Niekerk had to share top billing in Lausanne with Russia's world high jump champion Lasitskene, who added two centimetres to her personal best in recording 2.06m, putting her joint-fifth on the all-time lists.

Lasitskene, competing under a neutral banner due to Russia's doping-related suspension, is the only woman to have cleared 2.00m this season - and she has done it nine times.

Olympic and world 800m champion Semenya has been unbeatable at her main distance this season, but the Monaco field includes all those most likely to challenge the South African, including the Rio 2016 silver and bronze medallists, Francine Niyonsaba of Burundi and Margaret Wambui of Kenya. 

Canada's world silver medallist Melissa Bishop and the United States pair of 2013 world silver medallist Brenda Martinez and American Trials winner Ajee Wilson will also be in contention. 

France's Lavillenie will have effective home status and support as he seeks to elevate his form to the point where he can win the world outdoor pole vault title - the only honour missing from the world record holder's CV.

The 30-year-old is also aiming to finish the season as Diamond League champion for an eighth successive time, and is the only athlete to have won the Diamond Trophy on every occasion since the new series began in 2010.

But Lavillenie, who was unable to start training for his event until mid-May because of a foot injury, has found it tough going so far this season.  

His season’s best of 5.87m, achieved at Lausanne, was only enough for third place behind US winner Sam Kendricks and Poland's Pawel Wojciechowski, who both cleared 5.93.

The Pole, a surprise winner of the 2011 world title, is in outstanding form this season, free from the injuries that have dogged his career in recent years.

Kendricks, the Olympic bronze medallist, has also beaten Lavillenie at the Diamond League meetings in Shanghai, Eugene and Paris, and leads this year's world rankings with his first 6.00m jump.

Also in the equation for London are Canada's world champion Shawn Barber, Sweden's 17-year-old Armand Duplantis, who managed a prodigious 5.90 on April 1 this year, and of course the Olympic champion, Thiago Braz of Brazil.

Braz has yet to find form this season and failed to record a mark in the Rabat Diamond League meeting last week, where Wojciechowski won with 5.85.

The men’s javelin could be a similarly telling event to the men’s pole vault, given the presence of the two Germans who have seized the event by its neck in the space of the last year. 

Olympic champion Thomas Rohler has been consistently in 90m territory this season, having opened with 93.90 at the Doha Diamond League.

But his place behind Jan Zelezny in the world all-time lists was taken by compatriot Johannes Vetter, who produced four 90m throws on a single night in Lucerne on July 11, the best of them being 94.44, and will be looking to make a similar statement here.

In the women’s triple jump, Colombia's 33-year-old Olympic and world champion Caterine Ibarguen will face the 21-year-old world indoor champion Yulimar Rojas for the first time since the Venezuelan beat her at the Rome Diamond League meeting.

World record holder Kendra Harrison of the US, who has run 12.28 this year, heads a 100m hurdles field that includes Australia's London 2012 champion Sally Pearson, who marked her recovery from injuries with a season's best of 12.48 at the London Diamond League meeting.

The women's 3,000m brings together Kenya's Olympic 5,000m silver medallist Hellen Obiri and Britain's European Indoor 1,500 and 3,000m champion Laura Muir, 12 days after their rousing contest over the mile in London. 

This saw Obiri set a national record of 4min 16.56sec and Muir register a personal best of 4:18.03.

Kenya's Olympic 3,000m steeplechase champion Conseslus Kipruto faces a field that includes Rio 2016 silver medallist Evan Jager of the US and his two leading Kenyan rivals, Jairus Birech and 35-year-old double Olympic champion Ezekel Kemboi. 

But his biggest challenge may be the ankle problem that caused him to drop out early from the race in Rabat last week.