OSAKA, Japan—American sprint king Tyson Gay predicted on Thursday the world record could fall in his 100 metres showdown with Jamaican record holder Asafa Powell at the world championships this weekend.
"Everything I have been hearing about the track and the surface is that it is supposed to be strictly fast," Gay told a news conference. "So I believe it is very possible for a world record to be broken at this track meet."
The meeting with Powell will be their first this year and Gay predicted a time of 9.80 or faster will be needed to win on Sunday.
"I feel real good," Gay said. "It (the showdown with Powell) is what everyone has been waiting for."
Powell first set his world record of 9.77 seconds in 2005, then tied it twice last year. Suspended American Justin Gatlin also has share of the world record but would lose it if his doping suspension is upheld.
Meanwhile, Gay has surged into the 100 metres spotlight with a slightly wind-assisted time of 9.76 seconds–one hundreds of a second under Powell's record–and several outstanding times into a head wind.
Powell's season has been less sensational with a best of 9.90 seconds.
"A lot of people feel he has to run 9.77 this year, and I feel the same way," Gay said.
"If he can beat me with the world record time, all well," the 25-year-old American said. "At the same time, he has to run faster than my time this year."
Worlds Fastest
Gay won the U.S. championships in 9.84 seconds, then clocked the second-fastest time on record in the 200, 19.62 seconds.
He will go for gold in the 200 metres as well and hopes to make it a hat trick in the 4x100 metres.
Neither sprinter has a world title. Powell missed the 2005 championships through injury and Gay took fourth in the 200 metres.
"I don't have any medals, so I don't know what the feeling feels like," Gay said.
The world's top-ranked 200 metres runner last year, Gay ran in the shadows of Powell and Gatlin in the 100 metres.
That has changed this year.
"I've really focused on working on my start, so I'm more of a 100 metres runner now," Gay said.
But the 200 metres remains his favourite event, he said.
His blossoming in the 100 metres, ironically, has come with his coach, Lance Brauman, in federal prison on embezzlement, theft and mail fraud charges
His workouts come in phone calls to Brauman and via training sessions planned in advance.
Brauman is scheduled for release from prison in four days, Gay said, but will not make it to Osaka for any of the championships.
"The coaching situation basically matured me a lot," Gay said. "It allowed me to learn how to train diligently in the absence of my coach. I think that made me become a better man."
Now he wants to become the world's fastest man.
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