Could Usain Bolt and 400m champ van Niekerk square off in a 300m race?

Usain Bolt has issued a challenge to the person who could pose a threat to his title of world’s fastest man.

Usain Bolt was already the greatest sprinter of all time before the Rio Olympics, but he put yet another stamp on that claim in beating out Andre de Grasse and Justin Gatlin in the 100m final on Monday.

Amazingly, that race was very nearly overshadowed by South Africa’s Wayde van Niekirk, who won the 400m title in an astonishing 43.03 seconds.

While Bolt has repeatedly said this will indeed be his final Olympics, the six-time gold medalist still wants to race van Niekirk in an effort to keep his title as the world’s fastest man. Van Niekirk competes at 200m (arguably Bolt’s best event), but the 400m is his bread and butter. And while Bolt has raced at 400m before, he doesn’t train for distance running. Since he knows he would easily beat van Niekirk in 200 meters, he issued a kinda-sorta challenge to compete at 300m:

"That would be a good race. He can’t beat me over 200m. I am not worried about that, but I am really proud of him because when he came to Jamaica I said to him: ‘Listen, you are the only person that I think can break this 400m world record’.This year, I was hoping that I was in good shape when my coach told me that they were going to put on a 300m. I wasn’t in the best of shape. Hopefully next season, if he’s in good shape, we might get a chance to run."

The last time a race like this happened, Donovan Bailey and Michael Johnson competed at 150 m to determine who was the fastest man on the planet. Bailey won the race, but only because Johnson got injured mid-way through.

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There isn’t a single person who wouldn’t be interested in watching this race unfold. If Bolt were to win,his legacy would be untouchable, while if van Niekirk won, it would be an effective passing-of-the-torch moment.

Given the financial and PR constraints placed on today’s star athletes, where every engagement and endorsement is micromanaged to within an inch of absurdity, it’s highly unlikely something like this would ever happen. If van Niekerk can stay competitive in the 200m, however, perhaps Bolt will be tempted to use the potential showdown as the final, emphatic testament to his generation-defining dominance.