"...I wouldn't put my money on anyone else but him [Bolt] for 100m and 200m."
Really, Michael? I'll take that bet.
"Without a doubt I think if he chose to make the switch at some point in his career and decided he was going to train for the 400m I am certain he would break the world record and probably run under 43 seconds and become the first person to run 42 seconds."
Really, Michael? At WHAT point in his career?
Michael is the same guy whose predictions about Bolt have been consistently wrong.
It looks like he's jumped onto the Bolt bandwagon now. I think his predictions, although completely different, are still completely wrong.
Bolt will be challenged in the 100m like never before...Blake, Powell, a healthy Gay, and the wildcards who emerge during Olympic years--Dix, Thompson, Makusha, Carter, etc.--could easily take the race. It would be as easy as missing the start, and Bolt would lose.
Then there is the 200m. If there had been a head-to-head race anytime in the past 6 months, IMHO Blake would have won. You will see--Blake is insane. Also, Gay should not be discounted for the 200m, if healthy--and what about Dix, with his huge recent PR? All it takes is feeling a bit under the weather, or being fatigued. This time he'll have to try in the semi's especially, to get a good lane draw, which will take a toll.
Bolt knows all this, which means that he might be training harder--which will lead to injury, and time for recovery (assuming he's clean).
IF Gay comes back healthy and fast, I think that he will win the 100m, especially if he has a start.
Blake will win the 200m.
Unless, of course, Bolt shows the form that he did running the WR relay anchor last year.
Actually, if I were Bolt, I would be training primarily for the 400m! I think it's reasonable to not pack the schedule too tightly, therefore I would sacrifice the 100m, I think, and go for the 200/400 double, but primarily for the 400m Olympic gold--he'd be the only Olympic champion at all 3 sprint distances, the best Olympic sprinter ever. If he managed to get the WR in the 400m, he would be unequivocally the most versatile sprinter in history thus far.
I'd leave the 100m alone--too many variables, too easy to lose the race for some reason. In the 400, you can execute a race strategy, and adjust along the way. The start is not absolutely critical.
Here's the big difference between the 100 and the 400--if you are the best runner you can win a 400, but if you are the best runner you can lose a 100.
Even a 200 can be won--look at what Blake did after missing the start.
I don't know what the schedule is in London, but I would already have switched to the 400m.
At this point, the glamour event is not the 100m--it is whatever Bolt is running.
If Bolt passes on the 100m, relatively nobody will care about it, which would be truly remarkable...and if he ran the 400, EVERYBODY would be watching.
He should be his own man, he should control his own destiny while he can. He is the King of track, and it is his decision that determines what is important and marquee, and what is not.
Plus, there is still the serious chance to set another WR, while he is still young.
A while back people were arguing that his 200m WR was better than his 100m WR, an argument that I relented to in the face of statistical evidence, but the truth of which I never believed. Now that Blake is there, it is obvious that the 200m record could be broken by someone soon--it's just lucky that it wasn't already broken by Blake.
The 9.58, however, will stand your lifetime and mine, unless Bolt learns how to sprint better--which he won't. He will own that WR until training, pharmacology, genetics, and luck improbably intersect sometime, which is highly unlikely.
He should do the 400, and he should do it now, and should win Olympic gold and set the WR soon.
And then he should switch to LJ exclusively, like Lewis did later in his career, win Olympic gold and set the WR, while still being on some likely gold-medal 4x100 teams along the way.
If he got the LJ-WR, that record would stand for a long time as well.
Ultimately, Michael Johnson seems like, well, a dumb jock.
Big surprise.