ASAFA POWELL, the 100m world record-holder, believes athletes who are tested positive should face the ultimate punishment - and be sent to jail for their abuse of the sport. “Throw them in prison,” said Powell. “Let them face some harsh time there. Taking drugs is illegal, because when police catch someone on the streets doing it, they go to prison.”

There was no shouting. No protestations. Just a decisive, powerful argument for the authorities from the sprinter who has taken the 100m to a new level at a time when every run which catches the eye has an inevitable question mark hanging over it.

As we chat, the sun is bouncing off the pool at the Hilton Hotel in Kingston. Once, the West Indian cricketers were the superstars on this island, but Powell is as big a name in sport as there is in Jamaica.

In less than three months, he hopes to return from Beijing as Olympic champion. Unlike last summer, when he was beaten over the final 20m of the 100m final at the world championships, he is determined there will be no mistakes, no presumption about the gold being his and no break in concentration.

As he heads towards the Olympic Games, where en route he will meet world champion Tyson Gay, of America, in the Aviva London Grand Prix on July 25, Powell, 25, knows each act of his sport, and particularly his event, is being played out under a dark cloud. In a San Francisco court room this week, Trevor Graham, the controversial American-based coach, is on trial for lying to federal agents over allegedly supplying drugs to his athletes. One of those, the disgraced Marion Jones, is serving a six-month sentence for the same offence.

The Graham trial resumes on Tuesday and the following day, American Justin Gatlin, the Olympic 100m champion in Athens, will prepare for his case at the Court of Arbitration for Sport, where he is appealing against his four-year ban for doping.

As Powell insisted, something has to be done before the events reach this stage. “It’s not my fault that people are saying that if someone has run very fast, he must be on drugs...it’s making it bad for us athletes now.

“It upsets me when athletes go the other way, the wrong way, because there are athletes out there who compete with their natural ability, but when people say that athletes who run fast are on drugs, it is something you have to live with. There is nothing I can do about it.

“I don’t worry about it. I am never going to test positive. I am confident about that, unless someone is going to frame me.”

Powell cannot fathom out why Dwain Chambers did what he did. Britain’s former European 100m champion was suspended for two years for testing positive and still remains hopeful of being in Beijing. “He was someone I respected, I like the British athletes,” added Powell. “Things happen and it is hard to understand.”

Powell broke the world record with a run of 9.74sec in Rieti, Italy, last September, but he remains the great enigma of sprinting. He won the Commonwealth Games title in Melbourne in 2006, but he has still to deliver on the global stage. As Justin Gatlin won in Athens, Powell was fifth and despite bieng odds-on favourite for victory in Osaka, he was overtaken by Gay after leading. “I was overconfident,” he said. “Before the race, I was thinking about what would happen if I won and how the crowd would react, instead of thinking about the moment.”

It will not be just Gay who provides his main opposition. Fellow Jamaican Usain Bolt has stormed to the top of the rankings this year with his 9.76sec in Kingston at the start of the month, but Powell remains the superstar. “I am a hero on this island,” he says. “Sometimes it is overwhelming. I am carrying the weight of the country on my shoulders, so I really want to cross that finish line first so I can put all that weight down - and enjoy it.”

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