By Gene Cherry
INDIANAPOLIS, Indiana, June 26 Reuters - Wet track, headwind - nothing appears to slow new American sprint sensation Tyson Gay.
The 24-year-old put on history’s most impressive 100-200 metres show at the weekend in booking his trip to August’s world championships in Osaka, Japan.
No sprinter has run a better double than 9.84 seconds for 100 metres and 19.62 for the 200m in the same championships.
Only one man has run a faster 200m - world record holder Michael Johnson, who clocked 19.32 for gold at the 1996 Atlanta Olympics.
He will become the best 100-200 combination ever,'' said sprint coach John Smith, the mentor of former 100m world record holder Maurice Greene and numerous Olympians. Statistically, Gay has already achieved that honour. His runs of 9.84 in the 100 and 19.68 in the 200 last year pushed him past Namibian Frank Fredericks as the combined fastest in the two events. The US championships only amplified Gay's hold on the honour. The 100m run came into a headwind of 0.5 metres per second on Friday. Only Greene, in his 9.82-second dash to the 2001 world title, has run faster into a headwind. On Sunday, Gay rushed through a slight headwind to his 19.62 clocking in the 200m on a wet track. It was probably as perfect as it’s going to be in these conditions,’’ Gay said.
After the prelims (on Saturday), I did not want to run,'' Gay said. But my family is here and they motivated me, and I wanted to come out and do my best for them.’’
Gay’s coach, Lance Brauman, was not present.
He is in prison on embezzlement, theft and mail fraud charges related to using student assistance funds at a Kansas community college to pay athletes, including Gay, for work they did not do. Gay was not charged.
Prior to leaving for prison in November, Brauman gave each of his athletes, including Gay and world 200m silver medallist Wallace Spearmon, notebooks with their workout schedules.
The coach and his athletes also talk by phone, Gay said. They cannot call him, however. Brauman must initiate calls.
He was scheduled to watch Gay’s races on television.
Gay also has turned to retired sprinter Jon Drummond, an exceptional starter who won Olympic relay gold, for assistance.
From where he was, it was a 180 (degrees improvement),'' Drummond said. Tyson never lacked speed or turnover. He just had a lot of technical flaws,’’ Drummond said of the former collegiate champion whose best global showing is fourth in the 200m at the 2005 world championships.
Now, Drummond said: I would not be surprised if he ran 9.6 (in the 100), not at all. If anyone is going to do it, he has the potential.'' Before the national championships, Gay proved he could challenge Jamaican Asafa Powell's 100m world record of 9.77 seconds. He blitzed to a time of 9.79 with an assisting wind in May, then clocked 9.76 in early June but was denied a world record because of an aiding wind. I believe I can run 9.73 (seconds) or faster,’’ Gay said.
When Gay will first meet Powell this season is unclear.
Gay’s first scheduled race in Europe is a 200m at Lausanne on July 10. He is also considering a 100 or 200 at Sheffield on July 15.
European promoters no doubt will be seeking other races after the past weekend.
``He’s not big, but is strong for his size,’’ said Smith of the 1.83m, 73kg Gay.
What does that mean? Does that mean he can run a mean set of 400m repeats in practice?
Strong for his size might be referring to physically strong for his size.
That must be a typo, I would bet a million dollars, Tyson Gay isn’t 6 Feet (1.83m) and 161 Pounds (73kg). Thats impossible. He HAS to weigh more than that. Look at this picture, his upper body larger than Asafa’s, and Asafa weighs 190-195, even being shorter, than doesn’t mean 30+ less pounds. If I were to actually guess his weight, he’s around 175 maybe 180 being 6 feet tall. I’m sure of this.
I dont think it seems too off, usatf has him at 5’11 165 which may be slightly more accurate, I dont understand why everyone always has a big huff that sprinters weigh more than posted. His compisition looks similiar to mine and i’m with an inch or two and a few pounds of that.
‘Athletics 2007’, which is severely anal about statistics, has Tyson Gay b. 9 sep 1982 lexington 1.83m 73kg.
Gay appears not “that” much bigger than Felix
Tyson is skinny. 160-165 sounds about right.
Everyone looks Jacked when they’re sprinting. There muscles are flexed and when you see them post race they have a “muscle pump”.
And I will call it now expect a 19.5 low from Tyson at Worlds and MJ’s record will be in alot of danger during the olympics.
I agree all sprinters look buff running and post race, they even look taller on tv.
I hear you guys, but I just dunno, your probably all right, but you seriously think he weighs 161, i find that very hard to beleive.
In this picture we have Jordan Vaden - listed at 176 pounds, Tyson Gay - 161 Pounds, and Jason Smoots - 187 Pounds. Does Tyson really appear to be 15 pounds lighter than the guy on his left and 26 lighter than the guy on his right? Jason does look the biggest, but I dunno. I don’t see why they would lie about his weight I guess. It would be nice to know exact current stats of these guys.
problem with T&f is that athletes can grow bigger! for example, usatf has X.-man 170lbs…was 202 last season for football…a bit more accurate…sometimes they have the weight thay had for athletes, at 16 or so…first years they emerged in high school and so on…
Usatf had MO green at 155 for years, when he and his coahc had told 180…yes he was 155…in 1995!same for gatlin…last year was a huge guy…and on usatf was 170…like last year in high school ( isa w the pics…there he was skinny)…IMHO, Gay has grown a bit bigger in his uPperbody this year
(off topic…in the picture above…how can a man has suche big arms like smoots???)
I remember Tim Montgomery was on the page with something ridiculous like 67 or 69 kg.
There seem to be very old numbers online and it looks like they never update them.
smoots has really cut down his weight since college, where i know he used to be 196-200 lbs. search for old pictures and he had much more muscle mass on him. still looks big however.
Height/Weight data are usually collected by national federations when the athletes come out at national class, for most of them that’s during their early years and the numbers are not corrected therafter (or if statisticians ask directly the athletes how much they weight). For example Ronald Pognon is still listed at 1.85/75kg, it was true 7 years ago, now he is 83kg, and Tyson Gay might be about the same or slightly lighter.
I think that guesstimating a sprinters weight is in the extreme difficult, this is due to a few reasons, one being they have a very low bf% and this means that their weight is made up mainly of muscle tissue, organs and bones, if next you consider their height, and for example ankle, wrist and knee circumferences which usually are on the thin side, then you can see or deduce that without thaat much mass they would look much larger than someone with a different (thicker) frame. I weigh 69 kilos at 173 cms and people think I weigh a lot more than that, one of my training partners weighs 80 at 180 cms and he looks like he weighs a little less than that normally but training or competing he looks much heavier.
Also, as for smoots, I think that his arms, aren’t that big, especially his right arm, you can see it isn’t that wide, he is however extremely “defined” with low bodyfat, and very noticeable divisions in muscle bodies, it would be expected that he look much larger than he really is.
my 2 cents 
Alex
http://www.nccu.edu/campus/athletics/tfsmoots.html
though these pics are from five years ago, smoots has some big arms, but yes, as you said, his low bodyfat levels make them appear bigger, as with most sprinters.
It’s not just an illusion, Jason Smoots has big arms, period. In every single picture he has big arms. I agree, good muscle bellies and low bodyfat, but his arms are large. He is listed at 187, thats big for a guy with pretty much no fat. Could go into bodybuilding if things don’t work out, hah.
Back on topic, I’d like to know what sort of work Drummond has been doing with Tyson. What technical changes did he make? Cues?
Tyson is probaly around 168 to be honest. He has really thin legs and he is very long limbed. But he is strong that I can astest to for seeing him for the past month.
He seems to drive his arms very hard when he comes out of the blocks, and very fast
Any numbers? An athlete in the same group said he wasn’t much last season.