Matthew Richardson aims to be ‘fastest of all time’ in flying 200m attempt

Richardson, who was born in Maidstone, Kent and moved to Western Australia aged nine, won two silver medals and a bronze for Australia last summer before switching his nationality.

He won a trio of sprint titles at the British Track Championships at the start of the year, and followed it with two golds on his Great Britain debut at the Nations Cup in March, on the Konya track in Turkey where the new attempts will all take place.

Richardson briefly set a new flying 200m record at the Olympics of 9.091 seconds, before Dutchman Harrie Lavreysen broke it minutes later.

The 26-year-old said he was “confident” going into next week and that the record would fall below nine seconds soon – a feat that requires speeds of more than 80km/hr.

“I’m pretty confident that I’m in a really good place to get the job done,” he said.

“It’s a bit of a race between Harrie and I to be the first person to do it [break nine seconds]. It’s been on my radar for the last couple of years as the world’s got a bit closer and closer to going below nine.”