Berlin: If he is not the most extraordinary athlete of all-time already, then Usain Bolt has revealed his next great leap towards rendering all arguments obsolete.
The world's fastest man plans to tackle the long jump. On the day when he was presented with a two and half tonne chunk of the Berlin Wall to take home to Jamaica with his three gold medals, the man who has been smashing down athletics barriers all week admitted for the first time his ambition to take on the same event at which Jesse Owens, previously the owner of the Olympiastadion, broke a world record.
And Mike Powell, current holder of the long jump mark of 8.95m, one of the great world records, says he is the coach who could one day ensure Bolt achieves the sort of landmark he has been setting in the sprints for two years.
As Bolt enjoyed a busy final day in Berlin, collecting his 4x100m sprint relay gold medal - ensuring that he has been seen at the stadium on every one of the championships' nine days either competing or receiving gongs - he was pressed again on whether he fancied new challenges.
"I tell my coach [Glen Mills] I'd love to try the long jump before I retire. Definitely," said Bolt.
"Hopefully I can do this because I think I'd be very good at it."
Powell does too. The man who usurped Bob Beamon's legendary mark of 8.90m in 1991 after track and field's most epic contest with Carl Lewis, believes Bolt can be the first to jump nine metres.
"I can show him how to jump nine metres. For a small fee!" joked Powell.
"With his height [6 foot 5 inches] he is the type who would scare me. We are dealing with a freak of nature athlete. He is off the charts. He is destroying other athletes, making them look like kids."
It is unlikely that Bolt will take the event seriously before the 2012 Olympics in London and, as for the 400 metres, which everyone believes is the inevitable next step, he remains guarded.
"In a quiet year, I'll definitely be running one early next year, just to get into shape," Bolt said.
But would he be taking the one-lap event seriously by 2012?
"I don't know. I don't want to do it but if my coach decides I'm dominant [over the 100m and 200m] and let's try something new, I'll definitely try to put my heart into it."
Bolt, who said he was exhausted after his exploits, said: "I've got everything I wanted so I'm just happy."
Bolt said promoters in Europe can forget any more world records from him this season.
It proved a great last day in Berlin for Bolt, what with being described by Jamaica's tourist minister as "our golden son", getting a public kiss from his mum to many "aahs" and then being presented with a painted slab of the Wall, depicting Bolt's 100 metres triumph. The memento is 3.6 metres long by 1.2 metres wide and weighs 2.7 tonnes.
