Birmingham, who are already close to officially concluding an agreement with United States Track & Field for them to base themselves in the city during the build-up to the London Olympics, have been in discussions with the Jamaica Amateur Athletics Association (JAAA) for more than a year.

 

But they face opposition from a number of other British cities, including Glasgow and Cardiff.

 

Mike Whitby, the Leader of Birmingham City Council, met Bolt, the triple Olympic champion, during a meeting with Jamaica's Sports Minister Olivia Grange.

 

Bolt, who is the favourite to win the 100 and 200 metres at the World Championships, which open in Berlin tomorrow, already knows the Midlands as he has relatives living in Wolverhampton.

 

In April Birmingham hosted the Jamaican High Commissioner to the United Kingdom, Burchell Whiteman, and showcased the city's facilities and highlighted its strong Caribbean links.

 

Whitby said: “We had a very encouraging meeting with the Minister and to meet Usain Bolt was the icing on the cake.

 

"It would be a tremendous boost for the city if we can play host to Usain and the Jamaican squad.

 

“I’m in Berlin because the big decision makers of world athletics are here and we have to show them that Birmingham means business for 2012.”

 

If Birmingham were to sign a deal with Jamaica it would help raise the city's spirts after it lost the opportunity earlier this week to call itself an Olympic Host City when Aston Villa withdrew from hosting matches during the 2012 football tournament because it could not guarantee that planned redevelopment work would be completed in time.

 

But the last two training camps organised by the JAAA have both caused controversy among the country's leading athletes.

 

Earlier this week six Jamaican athletes, including three Olympic gold medallists, were dropped from their team after they failed to show up at a training camp in Nuremberg.

 

The trio - 100m champion Shelly-Ann Fraser, 400m gold medallist Melanie Walker and Asafa Powell, the former world record holder who anchored the 4x100m team, including Bolt, to victory in Beijing - were only reinstated following the intervention of International Association of Athletics Federations President Lamine Diack.

 

It followed a similar incident before Beijing last year, also involving Fraser and Powell, when a group of athletes also refused to show up at a pre-Olympic training camp at Tianjin in China.