Sunday's 100 meter showdown
EUGENE, Ore. (AP) -- If Tyson Gay is the man to beat at the U.S. Olympic track and field trials, Wallace Spearmon wants to be the man who beats him.
They go way back, these two, having traded school records while in college at Arkansas, then sharing a coach for a time.
They'll be competing against each other starting Saturday at Hayward Field in qualifying for the 100 meters. That event's final is Sunday, with the top three men making the Beijing Games roster. Gay and Spearmon will be at it again in the 200 next week.
Gay is the reigning world champion at both distances. Spearmon won a world championships silver in the 200 in 2005, a bronze in that event in 2007 — and while he acknowledges he's not as good at the shorter dash, he sure talks a good game.
"The best way to describe it is brothers," Spearmon said. "You have the little brother and big brother — you love each other, but at the same time you hate each other, because every time I get an ice cream cone, you want one with two scoops on it. So everything he does, I want — and I want more. And whenever I get something he has, he wants it."
Spearmon is 23; Gay will turn 26 in August, the day after the opening ceremony in Beijing.
Clearly, Spearmon looks up to Gay and respects his accomplishments. But Spearmon also wants to beat Gay, of course.
"I went to Arkansas, he was already there. He was the man to beat. He was the guy already there. No one knew who I was," Spearmon said. "I was guy who won (a high school state title) in Arkansas and that really wasn't impressive. So when I went to Arkansas, and he was the man, I just sort of stayed in the shadows."
Others expected to be in the mix in the 100 include 2007 NCAA champion Walter Dix, 2006 NCAA champion Xavier Carter, Trindon Holliday, Mark Jelks and Leroy Dixon.
Gay comes in as an overwhelming favorite, but he wants to show himself and others that he's ready to do big things in Beijing.
He was taken aback by what happened on May 31 in New York, when Jamaica's Usain Bolt broke the world record in the 100 by running 9.72. Gay was a distant second in 9.85, although he eased up near the finish when he saw he couldn't win.
That race led Gay and his coach, Jon Drummond, to go back and tinker with technique.
They found problems with Gay's start in particular, and with the way he was bringing his feet up too far behind him between strides.
In retrospect, that big loss to Bolt could pay big dividends.
"Drummond and myself kind of took some things for granted that I was ready to run and I didn't really have to really, really focus on the first part of my race, because it's good," Gay said. "But his was better."
Before taking on Bolt again, though, Gay will need to deal with his old pal Spearmon.
Copyright 2008 The Associated Press.
