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Simply: it has all looked easy, but never was. Even his many slow starts have ended with the field being eaten up by his abnormally long stride, the pummelling rhythm he finds in the final 30 metres of a race. Even with stumbles and mishaps, with injury scares and new kids on the block, Bolt’s eight Olympic golds and 11 world titles have carried an air of inevitability. The public have gorged themselves on this.

But in London at the 2017 World Athletics Championships, there is a greater chance than ever they will learn what a Bolt defeat looks like.

Photo by Michael Steele / Getty Images

Running all the way through I Am Bolt, the movie of his life, was a struggle against body and mind. Now 30, he said in London this week: “Over the years, I’ve got more niggling injuries than anything else, simple little things, but it’s just because I’m getting older. The pounding means my body’s just deteriorating now, so for me it’s just time to go.”

This is an understatement. “He’s a good man, a great guy, but I don’t know that he’s been the easiest guy to coach,” said his mentor, Glen Mills, in the film. He meant psychologically, as Bolt’s highly sociable nature drew him to the life many of his friends were leading in Jamaica.

Through Beijing (2008), London (2012), Rio (2016) and now to the valediction in east London, Mills and Bolt have had to balance his ferociously competitive nature with the urge to cease competing all together: the fine line of all or nothing.

Bolt is anything but computer animated. His gift for catchy lines straight to camera is indeed redolent of Ali, with whom he was compared this week by IAAF president Sebastian Coe. There is an electricity when he looks down the lens and says: “They say I’m the underdog. Let’s see what happens about that.”