Usain Bolted - Tyson Gay pips Bolt in 100m

To some of us, Sports is Cricket and we do not read much of the other news items – Tennis, Soccer and Hockey would attract something after cricket – again not much of Athletics.  The Sprint race or 100m dash is one which is very charming. It will be all over in less than 10 secs and more replays would only reveal the actual way it finished. The video slow mo and guns would exactly pin point who actually won and the timing with which they finished.

When Seoul Olympics was on air live in 1988, the heart throb was Ben Johnson, born in Jamaica but running for Canada – one of the firsts to break the 10 sec barrier.  My favourite writer Sujatha wrote a novel in Kumudam titled ’10 second mutham’ – a story of an Indian female athlete who is trained to break the barrier of 10 seconds and her emotional relationship with the coach formed the nucleus of that story.

It was indeed thrilling watch to watch Ben Johson finish with 9.79 seconds. Actually closer to the finish, he turned his neck to see where his competitors were and started celebrating with a hallmark rise of fingers. He was praised so much and the race would remain etched in one’s memory. It is another matter that he was snatched of the Gold in a few days due to his testing positive for the prohibited drug. From the start he dominated reportedly hitting a max speed of 30 mph (48/3 kmph) and completed the lap in 48 strides.

At Beijing it was another Jamaican Usain Bolt ruling the roost, winning 100m, 200m & 4 x 100m relay. All these were World (in 100m & 200m) and Olympic records. It was 9.69 seconds for the 100m at Olympics and Bolt subsequently lowered it to 9.58 at 2009 World championship. There were some reports that going b his start at 60m, he could have finished at 9.52 but slowed down celebrating his victory before the finishing line. In fact his laces had come off and the race was perhaps run with an untied shoe.

All good things have to be brief and now we have another – Tyson Gay beating Usain Bolt. This man had been touted as the one to beat Bolt and at stockholm in the IAAF diamond league DN Galan meet, Usain Bolt suffered his first defeat in two years with American Tyson Gay winning the 100m in 9.84 sec; Bolt completed in 9.97 sec – certain that Bolt was at his best and not fully fit.

After losing to Asafa Powell in 2008, Bolt has had 14 successive wins and was beaten perhaps on a bad day. All eyes would be on Brussels where Bolt, Powell and Gay are to race on Aug 27th.

Regards – Sampathkumar S