Jamaican sprint king Usain Bolt has mused that his next challenge might be going after the world record in the men's 400 metres. As Olympic champion in the event, American LaShawn Merritt has a message for him: bring it on.

"If he steps up, he'll get a lane, I'll have a lane and we'll go at it," Merritt said yesterday. "And the best man's going to win."

That showdown won't happen next Thursday at the Festival of Excellence track meet at Varsity Stadium, but the good news is Merritt will be here as part of an increasingly impressive field for the event being headlined by Bolt in the 100 metres.

Merritt will stick to his specialty, the 400 metres, where at the Beijing Games he soundly whipped fellow American Jeremy Warriner, the defending champion who was thought to be invincible heading into the Olympic campaign.

The hype around Warriner never fazed the 22-year-old from Portsmouth, Va.

"The whole thing with him being unbeatable, one thing I don't do is I don't read a lot of stuff that writers write and a lot of things that people say," he said. "I don't even really read interviews I've done, I don't go onto websites because that plays into the mental part of it. All I want to do is train, get to the race and do what I got to do."

The Festival of Excellence is benefiting from Merritt's desire to expand his horizons. He told his agent he wanted to race at some meets this year that he'd never done before. He's never been to Canada, so this new track meet being organized by the University of Toronto definitely fit the bill. Count Merritt among those looking forward to watching Bolt in action. "He's going to get a crowd riled up," he said.

"He's going to perform. You know he's definitely going to perform. He's exciting to watch because he's having fun with it."