The fastest man in the world this year, Tyson Gay, confirmed his status and took the 100 metres World title in 9.85sec, just 0.01 off his lifetime best. Second was Derrick Atkins, of the Bahamas, in a national record of 9.91 while Asafa Powell, the champion in waiting, had to content himself with bronze.

“Today I was a little bit nervous,” admitted Gay. “My mother and Jon Drummond kept telling me ‘Just believe in your top speed’. So I stayed relaxed and even though I had a bad start and Asafa was in front of me after 60m I saw that I could catch him – and it worked!

“A new PB, a national record and a silver. I stuck to my race plan and it has come right,” said Atkins. “I was aiming for the gold, but I’m happy to take silver.”

“I was ready to go,” said Powell. “But I made a couple of mistakes. My blocks stumbled and I could not accelerate well. That was planned to be my race because I’m in great shape. When I realised he was coming, things were beginning to be bad for me.”

No one who had seen the early rounds could have foreseen the result. While Powell was calm and fluency, Gay seemed to be working hard. But it was all an illusion, as the man from Fayetteville, Kentucky, roared past the Jamaican at just past the halfway mark, stretching his arms wide and his mouth opening into a roar of triumph as he sped across the line, punching the air.

Ever since he ran Powell close in Stockholm, Atkins had looked like the only man in the field who could trouble either of the favourites, and so it proved as he found an extra gear to put daylight between himself and the world record-holder.

That makes Gay the eighth US winner of the 100m since the World Championships started in Helsinki in 1983. Despite being his country’s sole representative in the final, he upheld his country’s dominant tradition just when the word was spreading in Osaka that maybe American sprinting was not that hot after all.

Before the start, Powell prowled as Gay sat on the track talking to himself. When they lined up and the haunting Japanese horns introduced the start of the race, Gay was trying to calm himself, breathing deeply. Powell looked down at the track while Atkins looked most composed of all as he stared calmly towards the finish.

As the gun cracked, it was a clean start and the three medallists got away in unison. At the pickup it was Powell who took an early lead, but then Gay’s battling style brought him back into contention and he forged ahead pursued by Atkins to the first global gold of his career.

In two days' time, Gay’s coach, Lance Brauming, comes out of jail, where he is serving a sentence for fraud. Gay's gold and Brauming's release must be the rarest combination ever in the history of sport.  

Osaka 2007 News Team/mb