Usain Bolt overcame a poor start to claim an easy victory in the 100 metres at the AF Golden League meeting in Zurich despite clearly being under the weather.
Despite claiming he was suffering no tiredness from his performances in Beijing where he won both the 100m and 200m Olympic titles in world record times and earned another in Jamaica's 4x100m relay success, Bolt never tried to raise his game to those heights.
The triple champion was the last contestant out of his blocks and the race was past the halfway point before he opened his long legs to power to the front and clinch victory in 9.83sec.
The time fell short of the Weltklasse meeting record of 9.77sec which his fellow Jamaican Asafa Powell - who he succeeded as world record holder - achieved two years ago.
The USA's Walter Dix reversed placings with Trinidad's Richard Thompson who beat him for the silver medal in Beijing with the pair clocking 9.99 and 10.09.
"My start was not too good," admitted Bolt. "I concentrated on winning and as I'm starting to get a cold I was not able to think about a faster time."
Bolt, who received an ecstatic reception from the capacity 26,000 crowd, added: "My coach told me that I should make sure to end the season healthy."
Now the 6ft 5in athlete will be hoping for a swift recovery before competing over 200m at the IAAF Super Grand Prix meeting in Lausanne next Tuesday.
There were high expectations of at least one world record in a meeting proudly boasting the reputation of the 'Three Hour Olympics,' but all forecasted attempts failed to materialise.
The closest came from Pamela Jelimo who in a well-paced race fell short of Jarmila Kratochvilova's 25-year-old mark in the 800m of 1min 53.28sec set in Munich 25 years ago.
However the 18-year-old Olympic champion broke her own world junior record for the fifth time this season thanks to a powerful run for home from 250m.
The Kenyan raced well clear of the field to win in a time of 1:54.01 as runner-up Maryam Jamal set a Bahrain record of 1:57.80 with world champion Janeth Jepkosgei third in 1:58.26.
"I am so tired," said Jelimo, along with high jumper Blanka Vlasic, the sole survivor in the chase for the IAAF US dollars one million Golden jackpot.
"But this was my best race with the best pacemakers."
"The world record is now closer but I'm not sure I can do it this year - maybe next."