The Jamaican may add the long jump to his planned schedule for London, which already includes the 100 and 200 metres and the 4x100m relay.

Owens won all four events at the 1936 Olympics in Berlin and Lewis matched him at Los Angeles in 1984.

But Bolt admitted that his coach Glen Mills may decide that he should add the 400m to his repertoire rather than the long jump.

He said: "For me, I don't know.

"I always leave the decisions up to my coach."

Bolt said, though, that he would not try anything new if it may affect his chances of being successful at the 100m and 200m, at which he has broken the world record for at last year's Olympics and the World Championships in Berlin, which finished earlier this week.

He said: "You don't want to try something new and then something goes wrong."

Bolt, 23, said if he does decide to go for four, it would take meticulous preparation and if Mills wanted to him to run the 400m than attempt the long jump he would do it.

He said: "It [the 400m] really gives you speed and endurance.

"The 400 I don't want to do, but I think I'll do it in the future because my coach can be very convincing.

"And he'll find some argument for me to do it."

Bolt ran 46.35sec for 400m in Kingston in February as a training exercise and is confident that he could make a big impact if he took the distance seriously.

He said: "I think I would be pretty good.

"I tried it when I was young, just messing around."

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