Justin Gatlin goes into the world championships here with a fantastic chance to join an illustrious gang of four sprinters who all held both Olympic gold and the world title simultaneously.
With the withdrawal of new world record holder Asafa Powell of Jamaica after his failure to recover from a torn groin muscle, Gatlin has emerged as hot favourite for the 100m.
If he were to win the blue riband event, he would join the elite quartet of sprinting legends Carl Lewis, Linford Christie, Donovan Bailey and Maurice Greene in holding the two titles at the same time.
"To be set alongside such great athletes would be a privilege, but I am not going to anticipate my name being mentioned in the same breath until I do achieve that target," said the 23-year-old, who was controversially reinstated into the 100m at the US trials after being disqualified in the heats.
"Whoever is on that line deserves to be on that line and we have the same distance to run. Whoever gets to the finish line first will win and, hopefully, that will be me. "You want to go out there, be yourself, and run the best race you can."
As for Powell's withdrawal, Gatlin said: "This changes nothing.
"I wasn't the Olympics favourite last year but I won. Everyone has a chance to win," said the former art student who also took Olympic bronze in the 200m.
When Gatlin roared across the finishing line of the Olympic 100 metres in 9.85sec, he left behind not only a testing childhood and a brush with drugs early in his career but also reigning champion Greene and one of the best fields of sprinters ever assembled.
With Gatlin, the torch was passed to a new generation in the heavyweight event of the world athletics programme.
Gatlin, however, cannot completely outrun the doping question mark that hangs over his sport.
In 2001, he tested positive for amphetamines and was hit with a two-year ban, reduced to one year after he appealed on the grounds he required treatment for attention deficit disorder.
Gatlin, a tall man with a smooth, long stride has long been considered a champion in waiting, and his blistering start honed in winning the world indoor title at 60 metres in 2003 served him well. "I never feel like an underdog, I always feel I am a champion," Gatlin said after his triumph in Athens.
Formerly at the University of Tennessee, Gatlin is now coached by Reinaldo 'Skeets' Nehemiah, a former 110m hurdles world record holder and San Francisco 49ers American football player.
Gatlin flopped on his reappearance on European shores this season, finishing third behind French sprinter Ronald Pognon and Ghana's veteran Aziz Zakari in Lausanne.
But he hit back at the Golden League in Rome, albeit aided by the forced withdrawals of Powell and Portugal's Athens silver medallist Francis Obikwelu, beating a quality field at ease in a season's best of 9.96sec.
"My plan is to go on being dominant this season, up through the world championships in Helsinki," said Gatlin, who has also targeted Powell's world record.
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