– Olympic 100 and 200m champion Usain Bolt will look to leave his own
personal stamp on this year’s World Championships which begins today in Berlin but will find American Tyson Gay standing in his way
BERLIN, Germany, CMC – Phenomenal Jamaican Usain Bolt and reigning champion Tyson Gay, of the USA, are the undisputed star attractions at the 12th IAAF World Championship and fans will not have to wait long to see them.
Both will appear in the heats of the 100 metres today’s first morning session of the nine-day meet.
“I just want to run, I’m just itching to run,” Bolt told reporters.
“I’ve been training hard, I’ve put the work in and I’m fully fit. I’m confident, but not too confident,” added the 6-foot-5-inch sprint marvel.
After setting three world records while claiming Olympic gold in the 100, 200 and sprint relay events in Beijing, Bolt is now taking aim at a similar run at the World Championship and reigning sprint double champion Gay is standing in his way.
“He’s already shown the world what he can do, but I haven’t shown all my talents yet,” said Gay, who is current world leader in both 100 and 200-metre sprints.
Coming off a hamstring injury, Gay was below his best in Beijing when Bolt exploded with a flurry of unprecedented dashes and the 27-year-old American is not prepared to give up his titles without a grand fight.
“I’ve set a standard to myself and want to live up to it,” added Gay, whose best times this year have been 9.77 seconds in the 100 metres and 19.58 in the 200, compared to Bolt’s season-best times of 9.79 and 19.59.
Bolt will run in Heat Nine of the 100 metres at 12:36 pm local time (5:36 am Eastern Caribbean Time/4:36 am Jamaica Time) with Zambia’s Gerald Phiri and Brazilian Jose Carlos Moreira his best known rivals.
Gay takes the track approximately 15 minutes later in Heat 11, in which he faces the St Kitts and Nevis ex-World Champion Kim Collins.
Jamaica’s former world record holder Asafa Powell, dramatically cleared Wednesday to compete after initially being axed from the Jamaica team, is among the “second tier” medal contenders, along with the rising Antiguan star Daniel Bailey.
Powell and several elite MVP Track Club athletes had been pulled from the Jamaica team for failure to attend a pre-Championship training camp but the IAAF intervened and influenced a change of heart from the Jamaica Amateur Athletic Association (JAAA).
Powell, a bronze medallist at the 2007 World Championship in Osaka, and Bahamian Derrick Atkins, who won silver in Osaka, will race in Heat Three.
Bailey, the world’s fourth quickest man this year over 100 metres, is in Heat five with Gambia-born Norwegian Jaysuma Saidy Ndure.
Trinidad and Tobago’s Richard Thompson, who won 100-metre silver at the Beijing Olympics a year ago, will contest Heat 10 against the likes of Ghana’s Aziz Zakari and Britain’s Tyrone Edgar.
The top three finishers plus the fastest four losers will advance to the quarter-finals in Saturday’s afternoon session.
Only three finals are being decided on the opening day – the men’s 20-kilometre race walk, the women’s 10,000 metres and the men’s shot put.
Poland’s Olympic champion Tomasz Majewski is favourite for the men’s shot and the late withdrawal through injury of defending champion and double Olympic distance gold medallist Tirunesh Dibaba, of Ethiopia, has thrown the 10,000-metre run wide open.
Dibaba’s Ethiopian colleague Meselech Melkamu and 2004 Olympic 5000-metre champ Meseret Defar are the leading lights there, hoping to keep their prolific African nation’s distance-running record intact.
A competitive start list is also down for the preliminaries of the women’s 400 metres, including the successful Britain Christine Ohuruogu, who has won the Commonwealth, World and Olympic titles in the last three years.
American world leader Sanya Richards, the Russians Antonina Krivoshapka and Anastasiya Kapachinskaya, and Jamaican Olympic silver medallist Shericka Williams appear to have straightforward tasks in the early rounds of the women’s 400 metres.
Williams, whose rapid finish in Beijing last summer, gave her a surprising silver, already has a solid 49.98 clocking this year and should coast through her Heat Three assignment in which she will face Botswana’s Amantle Montsho and Nigerian Folasade Abugan.
Ohuruogu and Richards clash in Heat Five with Guyana’s former Commonwealth Games champion Aliann Pompey and Grenada’s Trish Bartholomew.
