London, Aug 6: Beat Usain Bolt at your peril. He is bound to get you back, when it matters most. Any questions that Yohan Blake raised by beating the defending 100-meter Olympic champion during the Jamaican trials a month ago were emphatically answered with the second-fastest time in history yesterday. And it leaves Bolt one step away from achieving his ultimate goal -- becoming a "living legend" by defending his Olympic 100- and 200-meter titles.

Next up he'll race on Tuesday's heats of the 200 meters, his favourite event. "Right now I need this to become a legend. That's my main event. That's what I do. I'm not going to let myself down," Bolt said.

"When Yohan Blake beat me, twice, it woke me up, opened my eyes. It was like he come, knocked on my door and say, 'It's an Olympic year, are you ready?'," Bolt said. Question answered. Bolt easily won the defining race of the London Olympics. He was slow out of the blocks but once he got his giant stride going he was unbeatable once again, leaving Blake and 2004 Olympic champion Justin Gatlin in his wake.

"I knew it was going to be like this. There wasn't a doubt in my mind it was going to be like this," Bolt said after setting an Olympic record of 9.63 seconds, just .05 of a second outside his world mark.

World champion Blake equalled his personal best with 9.75 and Gatlin took bronze in 9.79. The time was the second fastest in history and it showed the mark of the man that some said he didn't look as imperious as he once was.

Unlike his showboating and coasting during a then world-record run at Beijing four years ago, Bolt was all business until near the finish on Sunday night, even leaning at the line. He was not even distracted when a fan threw a plastic bottle toward the start when the sprinters were in the blocks, about a second before the start of the race.

AP