Usain Bolt and Michael Johnson are two of the fastest men in history, but their paths never quite crossed.

The athletes are from different generations, and mostly focused on different events during their record-breaking careers, but a race between the pair has still been much discussed.

Bolt never shared the track with Johnson but a race between the pair is much debatedGetty

Johnson, who mostly competed in the 200m and 400m races, retired from competition in 2001, a few years before Bolt made his Olympic debut in 2004.

The Jamaican went on to become an eight-time gold medalist, and is widely considered to be the greatest sprinter of all time with the 100m and 200m world records.

In the 200m at the 2008 Beijing Olympics, Bolt lowered Johnson’s mark of 19.32 by .02 seconds and then one year later lowered his own time at the World Championships to a barely believable 19.19.

Despite Bolt’s impressive achievements, Johnson has previously suggested he would have won a race between the pair had they competed in the same generation.

“I win that race every day. Every time we line up, I win that race, guaranteed,” the American legend said back in 2016.

He then repeated that claim during an appearance on the High Performance Podcast earlier this year, pinpointing exactly why he backs himself.

“Usain is an amazing athlete and he would have had an advantage on me a little bit out of the blocks,” he said.

“But you know, when he’s slowing down at the end, he’s not the most efficient at the end of the race.

“I’m extraordinarily efficient. I would have beaten him on speed endurance and the ability to hold my speed and my ability to be more efficient.”

This week, Bolt also sat down with the High Performance Podcast, and offered a blunt response to Johnson’s claim.

Bolt remains the world record holder for the 100mGetty

Johnson became the first man to complete the Olympic ‘Golden Double’ after winning the 200m and 400m titles at Atlanta 1996Getty

“No way he’s going to beat me,” Bolt stated.

He then went on to recall how proving Johnson wrong at the 2008 Beijing Olympics was “one of his best feelings”.

“One of the funnies videos, in ’08, I think it was BBC he was broadcasting with. If you go on the internet you can find this video and they were asking him, ‘Oh do you think he’s gonna break the record?’” Bolt continued.

“And he was like, ‘No I think his mechanics needs some work, it will take him two more years to get to the world record’. Then in the same day I broke the world record.

“It’s one of my best videos, I watch it every now and again.”

While the pair were never in direct competition, Bolt’s breaking of Johnson’s 200m world record is about as close as we will ever get to finding out.

Johnson had set the standard after smashing Pietro Mennea’s record that had stored for more than 16 years, and MJ’s mark stood for 12 years until Bolt arrived.

Johnson’s 19.32secs has since been bettered by Yohan Blake and Noah Lyles, but the American remains one of the standard bearers for sprinting.

However Bolt has the records to stand apart from the all-time field – and by quite a distance.