'Mini Bolt' on his way to Toronto for July track meet

Toronto got the chance to see the great Usain Bolt in the flesh two years ago.

Now, they'll get the opportunity to see his heir apparent.

Jamaican sprinter Yohan Blake, the youngest sprinter to break the 10-second barrier and a training partner of Bolt, has been signed to run July 13 in the Toronto International Track and Field Games.

It's a nice coup for the organizers of the meet, which will be the finale to the inaugural National Track League series which gets underway June 29 with the Edmonton International Track Classic.

The 21-year-old Blake has been posting the kind of times in his young career that have many speculating he'll be giving Bolt all he can handle. Not that any of this would come as a surprise to the triple Olympic gold medalist, who gets to see him train every day as they are both part of the same group under coach Glen Mills.

"This kid is like a beast," Bolt told the BBC in an interview posted on their website last month. "If you see him in training, he strives to beat me every day in training. He works so hard and he's going to be really good in the future I promise – that's one thing I'm sure of.

"He tells me 'I'm going to beat you.' I keep telling him 'No! It's not going to happen.' That keeps me on my toes – because I see how hard he works."

Blake season-opening time of 9.80 seconds at a meet in Jamaica was the fastest opener since Bolt's incredible 2008 season, but the wind reading of plus 2.2 metres per second was over the allowable limit of 2.0.

He showed his form again Tuesday when he beat France's Christophe Lemaitre at an international meet in Montreuil, France with a season's best time of 9.95 seconds, 1/100th ahead of the Frenchman, who broke his own national record. Blake's personal best is 9.89 seconds.

The National Track League will feature Canadian stars Perdita Felicien and Dylan Armstrong with events also in Vancouver, Victoria and Halifax.

Felicien is a former world champion and world silver medalist hurdler who has her eyes firmly focused on London, while Armstrong is having a big season in men's shot put and leads the Diamond League series.