by Pirate Irwin
BRUSSELS, Aug 24, 2006 - Jamaican ace sprinter Asafa Powell will bid to put a smile back on athletics fans’ faces here on Friday at the 30th edition of the Memorial Van Damme meeting and the best way he could achieve that is by breaking the 100 metres world record.
After a quite dreadful week for the sport (edit) the spotlight will be on the quietly spoken Jamaican to lift the gloom.
A stunning run of 9.77 seconds - equalling the world record he already held - last week in Zurich shows that despite all the adverse headlines the Commonwealth champion is carrying on with business as usual. 
The 23-year-old is confident he can lower the mark at some point.
``I feel that it is within my reach, whether it will come this Friday or at another time I have no idea,’’ said Powell.
Powell will face a strong line-up including European champion Francis Obikwelu and American trio Leonard Scott, Marcus Brunson (both of whom ran under 10sec in Zurich) and Olympic 200m champion Shawn Crawford, training partner of Gatlin.
Should Powell succeed in lowering the record it would be the 11th world record set at the meeting - named after Belgium’s two-time Olympic silver medallist Ivo Van Damme or the ‘Muscles from Brussels’ tragically killed in a car crash in 1976.
While no Belgians feature in the list of picking up the Golden League bonus the home fans will have their own star to cheer on as European 100m and 200m champion Kim Gevaert runs in the 200m and in a field devoid of any star names should prevail.
There should well be a Jamaican double in the 100m as Sherone Simpson was mightily impressive in Zurich last week while world champion Lauryn Williams will be looking to improve on her disappointing sixth.
One of those world record breakers in Brussels, the remarkable Ethiopian Kenenisa Bekele will be going for another one after having broken his 10,000m mark last year.
This time he will try and lower his 5000m record in what should be a superb race with young Commonwealth champion Augustine Choge also in the field.
The 400m also promises much as Jeremy Wariner pursues his quest to eventually break his mentor Michael Johnson’s mark while the former great’s world record in the 200m is firmly in the sights of young tyro Xavier Carter, although both will be satisfied enough to win their respective races.
Wariner is one of four athletes still in line to reap the Golden League million dollar bonus if they win all six races in their discipline, along with Powell, Sanya Richards and Tirunesh Dibaba.