Gay Takes the Express Lane To China With Stunning Time

EUGENE, Ore., June 29 -- The wind was blowing hard, sure, but the performance was even stronger. Tyson Gay's dominance of the 100-meter final at the U.S. Olympic trials in track and field Sunday sent waves of shock through the crowd at Hayward Field, even if he got a bit of help from a gust.

Pushed to the line by a tailwind that prevented him from claiming the title of world's fastest man, Gay nonetheless finished in an historic 9.68 seconds -- the fastest any human has run over 100 meters in any conditions -- which might have reinstated him as the man to beat in Beijing at the Summer Games.

"Never in my lifetime" have I seen that, said Harvey Glance, a sprint and relay coach for the U.S. Olympic team. "I don't care what kind of conditions you're running under. Nine point six is extraordinary. . . . That was a historic moment."

The significance of wind-aided times might be up for debate, but this much was certain: Gay, the double world sprint champion, secured his place on his first U.S. Olympic team with the victory, topping Florida State's Walter Dix (9.80) and Darvis Patton (9.84), who also made the U.S. team.

The 4.1 meters-per-second wind (2.0 is the maximum allowed) left intact the world record of Jamaican Usain Bolt, who ran a 9.72 this year, but it is worth noting that Gay ran a legal 9.77 Saturday in the quarterfinals -- while slowing up at the finish. And Sunday's run came in the last of four 100 heats, a grueling undertaking for any sprinter. Rarely do sprint world records come at events in which rounds play a part.

"When I saw the 9.68, I was just in awe," said Patton, who occasionally works on his starts with Gay at the University of Texas-Arlington. "The guy's a phenomenal athlete."

The previous best clocking was a 9.69 run with a wind in excess of 5.0 by Obadele Thompson in El Paso in 1996.

Dix, who skipped last year's world championships in Osaka, Japan, to finish his degree at Florida State, said he didn't notice the tailwind.

"I though it was Tyson blowing by me," he said.

Though arguments will abound about what Gay's time would have been under legal conditions (a track reference guide called the "Big Gold Book" claims it equates to a 9.86), Gay proved with his quarterfinal showing Saturday and speedy effort Sunday that his previous best of 9.84 seconds was only a starting point. Whether he can match the speed of Bolt and Jamaican Asafa Powell, who owned the previous world record of 9.74 seconds, remains to be seen.

Gay said he relished the record but had his eye trained on the Olympic gold at the end of this summer.

"It means a lot to me," Gay said. "I'm glad my body ran that fast. . . . [But] the gold medal motivates me the most. . . . I'm going to save the best for last."