Diamond League 2010 Doha: Asafa Powell eyes Usain Bolt's 100m world record

Asafa Powell heads into his first competition of the season on Friday still believing he can reclaim the 100 metres world record from fellow Jamaican Usain Bolt.

The 27-year-old is the hot favourite to open his campaign with victory at the inaugural IAAF Diamond League meeting in Doha.

Another Jamaican, Nesta Carter, is the fastest man in the field so far this year, with a time of 10.09 seconds clocked in Kingston earlier this month, but Powell is accustomed to operating below the 10-second mark, having dipped beneath it a record 60 times in his career.

On two of those occasions – when he clocked 9.77 in June 2005 and 9.74 in September 2007 – the world record fell, and Powell, who finished third at last year's World Championships in Berlin when Bolt ran a world record time of 9.58 to win gold, feels the current mark is within his reach.

"It's something that I'm confident I can go below," Powell told Press Association Sport on a visit to the Al Jazeera Children's Channel headquarters.

Not that Powell is particularly concerned by times so early in the season.

"I've been feeling good so far since the start of the year so I'm thinking positive," he added.

"I'm not really focusing on any times right now, not really focusing on the world record.

"I'll be going out there to give my best and if my best is better than the world record I'll be happy."

Powell's lifetime best of 9.72, set in Lausanne two years ago, is the joint fifth-fastest in history.

Were he racing in any other era, he would be the undisputed number one. Rivals Bolt and American Tyson Gay are the only two athletes to have gone quicker, but Powell is far from disappointed at having the limelight taken from him.

"No, I'm not feeling unlucky," he added.

"This is the best time to be in the sport, when the sport is at the highest level. The sport has never been at this level before so what better time to be in the sport?

"It's driving me, I'm still up there in the spotlight.

"Although Usain is the main man right now, I'm still there and I'm running very well.

"I have nothing to be worrying about, just to try and compete and run very fast."

The British presence in Doha will be headed by Olympic champion Christine Ohuruogu, who faces a very strong field in the 400m.

World champion Sanya Richards-Ross was last week forced to withdraw though injury, but Ohuruogu will still be up against world indoor champion Debbie Dunn, Olympic and World Championship silver medallist Shericka Williams, world leader Novlene Williams-Mills and three-time world 200m champion Allyson Felix.

Ohuruogu could only manage a disappointing fifth in Berlin last summer after an injury-disrupted preparation, her time of 50.21 well down on the 49.62 she ran to win in Beijing the year before.

Felix, though, does not feel the 25-year-old has anything to prove as she starts her build-up to July's European Championships in earnest.

"I think it's always difficult coming off injury, so I wouldn't say necessarily Christine has something to prove, but I'm sure for herself she just wants to get back up to where she was and even beyond leading up into London 2012," the American told Press Association Sport.

"She's extremely talented, she has experience. She's a great competitor."

Elsewhere, Croatian world champion Blanka Vlasic competes in the high jump, world champion Kerron Clement goes up against Olympic champion and fellow American Angelo Taylor in the 400m hurdles, and in the 100m hurdles world indoor champion Lolo Jones faces Olympic champion Dawn Harper and Canada's Priscilla Lopes-Schliep.

Kenyan trio – Moses Masai, Bernard Kiplagat and Micah Kogo – will not race in the 5000m after they were injured in a car accident in Kenya this morning while on their way to the airport.

Michael Rimmer in the 800m and Steph Twell in the 1500m complete the British contingent.

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