SHATTERED DREAMS
EUGENE, Ore – Tyson Gay won three gold medals at last year’s World Championships and was bidding for three more in Beijing; but he saw that dream dashed in one painful instant, as he crumpled to the ground in the 200-meter quarterfinals at the U.S. Olympic Track & Field Trials.
Just 14 strides into the race, Gay tumbled to the ground, his white bib number flying through the air. He held the back of his left leg while being treated, eventually getting carried off the track and leaving Hayward Field in a golf cart. Gay underwent ice and compression treatment at his hotel from physiotherapist Benny Vaughn, who called it a severe left hamstring cramp.
“I was a little sore in warmups, but I didn’t feel it in the blocks. It was on the curve when I first felt it. I felt it (Friday) on the curve, too. I’ll be OK,” Gay told a handful of reporters outside the Bowerman Building. When asked if he’d be able to run the 100 in Beijing – which he’d qualified for last Sunday with a wind-aided 9.68 – he responded “I hope so.”
Agent Mark Wetmore said no structural damage was found pending an MRI, but it was still the cramp heard around the world of track and field.
“Before I went out on the track I felt a little tightness in my hamstring, so I had kind of a bad feeling. When I came off the curve the first two steps were fine, and then I felt it, sort of a pull, about 40 meters in. Once I was on the ground it didn’t hurt as much as when it happened,” Gay added in a release. “It’s just one of those things. I’ll just get it worked on for a few days.”
A cramp would take just days to heal, but a pull would take weeks. It was reminiscent of the 2000 trials when Michael Johnson and Maurice Greene pulled in the 200 final. Injuries underscore the meet’s capricious nature, like then-decathlon world record-holder Dan O’Brien not making the 1992 team.
“If it’s a cramp, he’s going to be fine. I wouldn’t say much more than that if I were him either,” laughed O’Brien, suggesting Gay could be protecting his six-figure appearance fees on the European circuit. “(If it’s a cramp) he’ll be training in a week. If he can’t sit on the toilet (today) he’s got problems.”
As would the U.S. sprint corps, which may have lost its best challenger for Jamaican stars Usain Bolt and Asafa Powell.
“I was like, Oh my God, what are we going to do with these Jamaicans?” said John Capel, a former world 200 champ who was eliminated.
After Gay lost to Bolt on May 31 in New York on the latter’s way to a world-record 9.72 in the 100, he worked doggedly to fix his slow start. The result was a U.S.-record 9.77 semifinal here and a windy 9.68 final. And Gay is even better in the 200, holding three of the nine fastest times ever, including a 19.62 last year that is the second-best in history.
But both Capel and Wallace Spearmon suggested the strain of running sub-10.0 and then trying to run the grueling 200 rounds is just too much.
“I thought Oh my God, he’s been running for the last couple years while I was out and he just got hurt after running the rounds in the 100 and a couple of rounds in the 200?” Capel said. “I was like my body don’t have a chance. I’m going to take off on this curve and my whole hip is going to fall off.
“Running that fast, it puts you on ice. If I’d run a 9.7 or 9.8, I can tell you right now, I’d have just shut it down. There’s no way I would’ve doubled. You’re going to run eight races back to back? No way. Shoot, you better go sit on your behind and just run the 100.”
Apparently coach Jon Drummond echoed those sentiments, repeatedly asking Gay – who had a sore hip earlier in the week and a tight hamstring yesterday morning – if he was OK and urging him if he felt anything in the blocks to just not run. Unfortunately, Gay took that risk.
“I’d like the best team to go to Beijing. I’d rather have Tyson be here then not even if that means I wouldn’t make the team,” said Rodney Martin, whose 20.04 semi left him third-fastest in the world this year after Gay and Bolt. Spearmon, close behind at 20.05, talked about how tough the double is.
“There were a lot of nines in (the 100 final). That takes a lot out of your body,” Spearmon said. “I did it my first time last year and for days after that my whole body hurt me everywhere: My toes were sore, my neck was sore, my ears were sore. That’s pretty hard on your body and then to come out and try to double (is tough). You saw that with Tyson.
“Obadele Thomson ran (a wind-aided) 9.68 and said his body was never right after that. I don’t think that’ll happen to Tyson; I hope it doesn’t. (But) right now it’s looking like that Madden curse.”
Spearmon’s allusion to the mythical Madden curse is fitting, since Gay is the face of the sport, literally the coverboy on the USATF media guide. When he hit the polyurethane track, the gasps among the 20,000 at Hayward Field surely spread throughout the USATF offices to Adidas and NBC.
And they may not exhale until those MRI results are in.
