Usain Bolt to Race 200m in Paris

Bolt in Rome

World record holder Usain Bolt makes his second 200m appearance of 2011 in Friday's Diamond League event in Paris.

The 24-year-old, who defends his World Championship titles in South Korea this month, said: "I'm just working on technique. It's all about execution."

Home favourite Christophe Lemaitre and Panama's Alonso Edward also take part.

Britain's Greg Rutherford and Chris Tomlinson are in the long jump, Andy Turner is in the 110m hurdles and Andrew Baddeley runs in the 1,500m.

Bolt, who ran 19.19 seconds in the 2009 World Championship final in Berlin to set the 200m record, said of Friday's race: "I've got no time on my mind. If I get a good run off the corner and my technique is right it should be a good time.

"I've been working a lot on my back. I've been strengthening my hamstring. I've got a little bit more muscle this year because I've been really putting a lot of emphasis on that."

The Jamaican has raced only once against Lemaitre this year, winning the 100m at the Golden Gala in Rome in May.

Edward, who was distant second to Bolt in Berlin, is working his way back from injury but looked in good form in winning Tuesday's Reims International meeting.

The 21-year-old pipped Jamaica's Mario Forsythe by one-hundredth of a second for victory in 20.28 seconds.

In the sprint hurdles Turner, who lowered his lifetime best to 13.22 seconds in Lausanne but has had four successive fourth-place Diamond League finishes, will be up against Dayron Robles.

The Cuban world record holder, unbeaten in six races this summer, won in Reims with an impressive 13.16 seconds despite running into a strong headwind.

Also in action in Paris will be the controversial South Africans Oscar Pistorius and Caster Semenya.

Pistorius - who had both lower legs amputated when he was 11 months old - is the Paralympic champion, who runs on springy, lightweight, J-shaped limbs called "Cheetahs."

After being cleared to run, the 24-year-old needs to achieve a time of 45.25 seconds to qualify for the World Championships in Daegu.

He missed the 2008 Beijing Olympics qualifying mark by just 0.3 seconds.

Semenya won the 2009 800m World title but was cast into limbo soon afterwards because of allegations over her true gender.

That issue was eventually settled last July, but Semenya has recently struggled to regain her old form.

She finished last in the 1500m in the Lausanne Diamond League last week, and was fifth in Reims in 2:01.02.