Fastest athlete on the planet? Is Usain Bolt set to lose his crown to British cyclist Matt Richardson?

If you read that sentence above at a good pace, it will take you about 9.5 to 10 seconds, the same time (roughly) it took Bolt to stun the world in 2009. But is he the fastest athlete on the planet?

Perhaps, perhaps not. It's semantics.

While Bolt is most definitely the fastest person to 'run', the 'unofficial' title of fastest athlete might actually belong to a cyclist, a Dutchman called Harrie Lavreysen.

He's a track cyclist who, in the flying 200m time trial, whizzed around a Velodrome in 9.088 seconds. It's a niche world record, but nonetheless it's raw power, strength and speeds in excess of 80kph (and a bike) combining to make an elite athlete very, very fast.

Thirty years ago track cyclists attempting this flying 200m world record were battling to break the 10-second barrier, but now, just like Bolt revolutionised the thinking of what's possible in athletics, the pursuit for the modern-day sprint cyclist is not an elusive 10-second barrier, but to break nine seconds.

Earlier this year, British track sprinter Matt Richardson went faster than Olympic champion Lavreyson over the Flying 200m by four hundredths of a second, but crucially the record hasn't been ratified by the UCI (Cycling's World Governing Body) as he briefly strayed off the legal part of the track.

He's taken the learnings, the knowledge needed and he now not only wants to break the Flying 200m World Record, but to be become the first ever to go under nine seconds.

So British Cycling are thinking outside of the box to challenge their riders. There's a World Championships later this year, but no Olympics, so why not do something a little different?

On Thursday at a track in Konya, Turkey, three British riders along with just four support staff will take to an empty velodrome and try to bring back to the UK not just one, but THREE world records!

Richardson is one of course. That speed, the blink-of-an-eye world record he is chasing has him incredibly focused, obsessed even.