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At 10.30 pm (8 pm India) Chinese time today, Usain Bolt, Asafa Powell and Tyson Gay, injury and calamity in the semi-finals notwithstanding, will line up on the start line at the Bird's Nest stadium and sport could witness the greatest foot race in history.
The lighting of the flame might be the enduring image of these Games so far and swimmer Michael Phelps might be its most recognisable face with his relentless haul of gold in the Water Cube pool.
But the defining moment of the XXIX Olympiad is there for the taking.
The stadium will be packed, just as it was as all three cruised through qualifying in the heats on the first day of athletics action when a burning sun cut through the smog to deliver a summer's day of heavenly dimensions.
Blessed
And the Beijing Games are blessed with the three fastest athletes of all-time in the same race.
Bolt is the raw kid, the 21-year-old Jamaican who has run only a handful of 100m races but who on June 1 this year in New York ran one of them in 9.72 seconds, faster than any other human on the planet. At 6ft 5ins, he has a statuesque figure, a high knee lift, a slightly geeky gait. He does not always give the impression he enjoys his work, not when he races through the reporters' mixed zone almost as swiftly as he pounds down the track.
Bolt, currently sport's most exciting athlete, but whose reaction times in his two races so far were among the slowest.
No matter, he still sauntered home in 9.92, looking right and left, arms barely pumping. That is frightening for the rest. Clearly, there is much room for improvement.
By contrast, Powell, his Jamaican teammate, is the consummate sprinter, low and fast out of the blocks. Quick into his running, power stored in the classic sprinter's thighs and powerful upper torso, delivering a best heat of 10.02, but again there was no danger.
Powell's demeanour is more languid than Bolt's, so much so that it is not always obvious that he is operating on the 'B' of the 'Bang', as Linford Christie dubbed the sprinter's reaction target.
Heats, however, are notoriously difficult to judge because the athlete is conserving as much energy as possible â physical and psychological. Yet, there was not a cigarette paper's width to choose between Bolt and Powell.
Gay is an enigma. He took second place in his heat behind Andrew Hinds from Barbados.
Gay is busier, more earnest than the others, believing the 100m champion should declare he is drug free and be prepared to prove it.
Lord knows, after Ben Johnson and Marion Jones and the rest of the cheats the sport needs a sprinting champion it can trust.
Mama's boy
Gay calls his mum minutes before every big race to settle his nerves, but do not regard that as a weakness. It did not stop him recording 9.77 in Eugene, Oregon, as recently as June 26.
Most notably, Gay, who won gold in the 100m, 200m and 4x100m at last year's world championships, has run the fastest 100m in history, 9.68, although it was deemed illegal because of a 4.1 metre per second windspeed.
So there we have it. Bolt with 9.72, Powell with 9.74 and Gay with 9.77, the sport's three fastest athletes.
There will be five others sharing the same track, but in truth they do not inhabit the same planet.
Bookmakers make Bolt the most marginal of favourites but it is a mighty close call.
Let us just hope athletics and the Olympics has a legend of whom it can be proud of.
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