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Usain Bolt v a wombat
Reckon you know who'd win a race between the 100m world record holder and Australia's chunkiest marsupial, known as the 'keg on legs'?
For Usain Bolt, it was the gold medal that also reinforced it was time to go.
For the first time the world's greatest sprinter felt like others were running against him – he wanted to go quicker but his body wouldn't let him.
Usain Bolt won the 200m but the world record he greedily coveted before the race – breaking his own world record – escaped him. Bolt wanted to beat Bolt, but Bolt had to accept he is no longer the Bolt he was.
"My legs just didn't feel rested, I am not 26 any more, I am not 21 any more. It's not going to be as it used to be. I wanted it but my body couldn't take me," he said.
"I was disappointed. I am always happy to win but I wanted to run faster. Even though I didn't break the world record I wanted to run faster. Key thing is that I won and that is what I came here for." It was a similar lament after the 100: I wanted to go quicker but I can't any more.
On a balmy night in Brazil the rain fell and the wind kicked up shortly before his race. It made the idea of a broken record either unattainable or all the more glorious.
Bolt was not exactly sluggish – he won in 19.78s, ahead of Canadian Andre de Grasse second in 20.02s with veteran Frenchman Christophe Lemaitre winning bronze in 20.12s in a photo finish with Briton Adam Gemili. The bronze was decided by thousandths of a second.
Bolt came to Rio to win three gold medals. Only the fallibility of his relay teammates will stop him achieving his goal.
"I don't need to prove anything else. What else can I do to prove to the world I am the greatest?" Bolt told reporters.
"I am trying to be one of the greatest. Be among (Muhammad) Ali and Pele. I hope to be in that bracket after these Games."
Bolt's standing as an Olympian also draws the inevitable comparison with the other luminary of these games Michael Phelps.
Bolt said it was an imponderable for others to determine who was the greatest.
"Why is it I knew someone was going to ask that," Bolt laughed.
"For me I can't say (who is better). We do totally different events you have to leave that up to mediators and the press.
"He has shown he is one of the best, no doubt, he has dominated retired then come back. For me I respect him because he has done so much for his sport also."
That was also part of the enjoyment of the medal for Bolt, to be able to help elevate his sport at a time when it was being assailed by systemic drug use.
"It's big. It's big (to win clean)," Bolt said.
"This is why people say I am so important to the sport to prove to younger kids coming up.
"Not just only me but everybody all the athletes that competed proved to the world you can do it. I came out here to prove to the world I am the best and to uplift the sport. You can do it clean.
"This medal means the world to me. It is the 200m gold medal so it means everything to me."
Bolt had this race won before he walked on the track. The imperious laughing sprinter who joyously mocks the field as he canters to the line, had laid down his mark in the semi-finals. He trotted to the line and waited long enough to giggle and toy with de Grasse that he might let him beat him.
It wasn't only about making it a lark, it was also letting the field know how effortless this was. Bolt admitted there was an edge too that being aware of the limitations his body now places on him he was not about to allow the next generation take his place before he was ready to leave.
"I said, you aren't going to beat me. I don't allow young kids to beat me, you are never going to get that chance," Bolt said.
Gemili's time seemed frozen with Lemaitre's but the Frenchman won the medal.
"I put so much into that run but lost my form at the end. I'm absolutely gutted," the Briton said.
"To miss an Olympic medal with the same time - it's gutting. But it's good that there were four Europeans in the final."
De Grasse said he exceeded expectations in winning silver but was still disappointed
"I thought I could have done a better job of contending with him but I came up short."
Unlike the 100m this was not a hyperbolic good-bad, dirty-clean pitched battle with Justin Gatlin. Bolt had ended that contest in the 100m, and Gatlin had halted any discussion in the 200m when he was eliminated in the semi-finals.
This contest needed no such extraneous concerns, it was only about Bolt. It seems it's only ever been about Bolt, but after Rio what next? There is no Bolt, yet there will only ever be Bolt.