Gay vs. Bolt?

Gay vs. Bolt?

Edward Ovadia

Email: edwardovadia [at] gmail.com

© 2009 The Runner's Tribe, all rights reserved. Published Thursday June 4, 2009

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Tyson Gay has officially stepped up to the plate at The Reebok Grand Prix, showing that Usain Bolt will not have it all his own way this year. While people have been talking about the Jamaican head to head match up of Asafa vs Usain, Tyson Gay has been quietly preparing in the background. After Gay's unfortunately poor showing at the Olympics last year, you could be forgiven for focusing all your attention on Bolt. But that mistake might prove costly, as Gay showed by running an early season 19.58 for 200m in New York. That cements his position as 3rd on the all time list, having already run 19.62 in 2007. Gay is clearly reaching that same kind of form that saw him take the 100m and 200m double at the 2007 World Champs.

And he looked incredible in 2007. He has the speed to match Asafa Powell in the 100m, but doesn't seem to suffer from the same kind of big-stage nerves that Powell does. Gay also seems to have the drive to take it to Usain in the 200m, at least on paper; although it's still hard to shake the feeling that Bolt still has a few gears left up his sleeve, that we're yet to see. Bolt seems to be able to drop incredibly fast times in any conditions, competition or not, headwind or tailwind, showboating or running hard. Get him into a perfect race and it will be interesting to see what happens, to say the least. But he's never had someone take it up to him, at least over 200m, the way that Gay could. There's a lot more that can go wrong over 200m, a lot longer for someone to fight their way back and go stride for stride with Bolt, make him question himself down that final straight. And that person may be Tyson Gay, who, like Bolt, seems to be better suited to the 200m.

The question now is whether Gay can keep the momentum up until the Berlin World Champs in August. In 2007 he managed well, blitzing the field, which included Bolt in the 200m. In 2008, he looked to be matching Bolt at every turn, running a wind-aided 9.68 over 100m at the US Trials in answer to Bolt's 9.72 world record. Unfortunately injury robbed Gay of any chance to take on Bolt in Beijing; but if Gay can bring his A-game to Berlin, then it will be one incredible head to head. How will Bolt respond under pressure? Will it spur him on to even faster times, or will he get flustered and allow Gay to come through and grab the biggest scalp in recent history? We'll have to see.

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