In 100-Meter Win, Gay Pushes the Limits

[Woodmonkey]

EUGENE, Ore. — Because of a stiff tailwind, Tyson Gay did not shatter the limits of human possibility with his astounding time of 9.68 seconds in the 100 meters at the United States Olympic track and field trials on Sunday.

But consider those limits seriously dented.

Gay’s performance did not qualify as a world record because of the tailwind of 4.1 meters per second — far above the 2.0 allowable for records — but it was still the fastest 100 run in any wind conditions. The previous best was a 9.69 run in 1996 by Barbados’s Obadele Thompson, who had the benefit of a 5.3-meters-per-second wind.

“I didn’t really care what the wind was,” Gay said. “I’m glad my body could do it. Now I know I have it in me.”

Gay’s run came in the final event on Sunday and put a fitting punctuation mark on a weekend of fast times by American sprinters. As Gay sailed across the finish line at the end of a flawless run, the capacity crowd of more than 20,000 at Hayward Field roared at the sight of his time. While they were quickly warned by the public-address announcer that it was not a world record because of the wind, it hardly dimmed the excitement.

Gay quickly ran to celebrate with the two runners who will join him on the Olympic team: Walter Dix, who ran a 9.80, and Darvis Patton, who ran a 9.84.

“Tyson ran a great race,” Dix said. “I was just trying to run him down. Now he knows how it feels to run a 9.6 and I know what it feels to run a 9.8. That will favor us. We know how it feels in your legs and it’s pretty possible to do it legal.”

Patton said: “If you would have blinked, you would have missed it. For the human body to go that fast is awesome.”

The race instantly set up what will be the most anticipated 10 seconds of the Beijing Olympics: Gay against Jamaica’s Usain Bolt, the world-record holder.

Bolt set that world record — 9.72 — in a meet in late May on Randalls Island, beating Gay handily in the process.

Gay, the reigning world champion in the 100 and the 200, wanted to show he would not shrink from the competition. He spent the last few weeks working with his coach, the two-time Olympic medalist Jon Drummond, to break down his stride and rebuild his technique. The results spoke for themselves this weekend.

“Getting a gold medal is my biggest motivation and I want to save the best for last,” Gay said. “My expectations are huge going into the Olympics.”

His trials got off to an adventurous start in the first round when he misjudged the finish line and pulled up early, nearly getting himself eliminated. But Gay soared back in the quarterfinals with an American-record time of 9.77, which had a legal tailwind. It seemed that was his big run of the trials, but it turned out to be just the beginning.

The final was run on another hot afternoon, with temperatures near 90 and a breeze that helped cool the crowd and kept a spectacular performance from being considered a record.

It was a nearly flawless race. Gay had a clean start and started to pull away from the field at about 30 meters. By the halfway point, Gay’s victory was no longer a matter of if, but of by how much.

“Jon Drummond said I was capable of running 9.6, so that’s what I had in my mind,” Gay said.

A debate quickly ensued over how much an impact the wind had on Gay’s time. For purposes of comparison, track and field has a chart that equates tailwinds with the difference in times. According to that, a wind of 4.1 is good for a boost of .18 seconds, meaning Gay would have run a 9.86 with no wind.

Not everyone was buying into that science.

“The wind doesn’t really ‘assist’ you,” said Harvey Glance, a relay gold medalist in the 1976 Olympics and a longtime coach at Alabama. “You don’t really know how much the wind really aided him in the time itself. I guess the 9.68 speaks for itself because no human being has ever done it before. Regardless of what the wind was, it was a historic moment.”

Dix, a 22-year-old recent graduate of Florida State who stunned the track world by returning to college after a breakout performance at last year’s nationals, proved a formidable opponent through the rounds. He ran a 9.96 in the first round, followed by 10.02, 9.93 and 9.80.

Patton, who won a silver medal with the 4x100-meter relay team in the Athens Games in 2004, qualified for the Olympics in an individual event for the first time.

Dix and Patton had an excellent view of Gay’s accomplishment, as did Drummond, who could hardly contain himself afterward.

“I don’t know if he’s going to be able to walk tomorrow,” Drummond said. “We need to get some type of flame-retardant uniform in case he catches on fire, he’s running so doggone fast.”

NOTES

At Jamaica’s Olympic trials, Veronica Campbell-Brown won the women’s 200 meters in a world-leading 21.94 seconds, while Usain Bolt took the men’s race in 19.97. Campbell-Brown, the reigning world champion in the 100, finished fourth in the 100 on Saturday, meaning she will probably not compete in the event in Beijing. (AP)

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