Friday, August 15, 2008

Gay, Powell, and Bolt Breeze Through 100-meters Heats

Olympics Day 7 - Athletics
-Beijing-Analysis-In Preparation For Saturdays Semi-finals and Finals.

For many of the sprinters, the first round of 100-meter heats, were a chance to shake off the rust. Many have not competed in at least two weeks and for Tyson Gay, it has been six weeks since he last ran at the U.S Olympic Trials.

The typical race strategy for champion racing is a combination of posturing and working on the different pieces of the race such as: the start and drive phase. Normally athletes do not like to show all of the stuff until the finals.

There were no major upsets in the morning, as The Big Three 100-meter runners easily made it through the first heat of the 100-meters rounds. Tyson Gay looked completely healed today as he was conserving energy and preparing for the next round ahead of him.

Times heated up a bit in the quarter-final heats that took place during the evening.

It appeared that Usain Bolt’s run of 9.92, was easy to him and that he burned very little energy. The world record holder maintains his status as the favorite to win gold, however history has shown that running the fastest times through the rounds is no guaranteed for victory in the finals. Veteran Darvis Patton (10.04) of the U.S. was second behind Bolt in that quarter-final heat.

Tyson Gay placed second in his heat (10.02), behind Former LSU runner Richard Thompson of Trinidad. In the final heat of the afternoon, Asafa Powell easily won in 10.02 seconds, followed closed by Walter Dix (10.08) of the U.S. placed.

By Jay Hicks.

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