Beijing Olympic Games

100 meters showdown remains greatest draw

By Mitch Phillips

LONDON (Reuters) - Usain Bolt, Asafa Powell and Tyson Gay, all sub-9.8 second performers, seek sprinting’s ultimate validation in a 100 meters showdown that will be the highlight of the athletics program at the Beijing Olympics.

Despite being badly tainted by the doping revelations that felled the men’s winner from four years ago and the 2000 women’s champion Marion Jones, the sport’s blue ribbon race remains the most magnetic event of the Games.

At the other end of the scale the men’s 10,000 meters could feature a 27-minute chess match between Olympic champion Kenenisa Bekele and Haile Gebrselassie, the Ethiopian compatriot he usurped as the world’s leading distance runner.

Chinese attention will focus on the 110 meters hurdles where Liu Xiang, the first man from his country to win an Olympic track gold medal, will try to repel Cuban Dayron Robles who took his world record in June.

Kenya’s Pamela Jelimo, 18, will be the focus of attention on the women’s side after her astonishing 800 meters performances this season and Ethiopia’s Tirunesh Dibaba will be trying to take both long distance golds.

The men’s 100 meters in Athens four years ago was a classic, with the first five men breaking 10 seconds for the first time. Jamaican Powell came in fifth in 9.94 behind winner Justin Gatlin of the United States, who was later banned for doping.

A year later, on the same track, Powell set a world record of 9.77 and improved it to 9.74 in 2007.

Compatriot Bolt moved the mark on to 9.72 this year while Gay posted 9.77 plus a wind-assisted 9.68, the fastest time recorded for the distance.

All three are capable of taking gold and the world record with it in the final on August 16.

Powell was favorite in the world championships a year ago but managed only bronze behind winner Gay. It was a performance that raised questions over the Jamaican’s temperament after he admitted giving up once he realized he would not win.

Injuries have limited his work this year and Gay also suffering a hamstring problem in the U.S. trials that ended his hopes of making the 200 meters team.

“This year for the first time all eyes will be on Bolt and Gay. Definitely after the disappointments of recent years when I was favorite, I prefer this sort of situation,” Powell said.

BOLT’S PROGRESS

Bolt’s progress in the 100 meters was a surprise for a man better known for the 200, in which he took silver behind Gay in the world championships.

Clearly the fastest over 200 this season, the 21-year-old will hope to prevent a repeat of the U.S. clean sweep of 2004.

The 400 meters is another intriguing race where LaShawn Merritt’s dogged trailing of Olympic and world champion Jeremy Wariner is starting to pay dividends with two confidence-boosting wins, including in the U.S. Olympic trials.

“Once I got into the home stretch I was smelling Beijing and victory,” Merritt said after that qualifying success against a man he has followed across the line too many times to remember.

Bekele and Gebrselassie are similarly well-acquainted, though their head-to-head record is thin because Gebrselassie moved up to marathon after being elbowed aside as the 10km king by his younger compatriot.

Bekele, 26, owns the world records for 5,000 and 10,000 that used to be Gebrselassie’s and also inherited his Olympic and world titles over the longer distance.

Gebrselassie, 35, opted out of the marathon because of his concerns over Beijing’s air quality and will need to roll back the years to add to his golds of 2000 and 2004.

Bekele took silver in the 5,000 four years ago. Having spent most of the year denying he would attempt the double, he now says he may have a go at becoming the first to achieve it since compatriot Miruts Yifter 28 years ago.

Liu has been a national hero since Athens and he cemented his reputation by making the world record his own two years later.

As if the expectations of 1 billion people did not provide enough pressure, he now has a fearsome rival in 21-year-old Robles who set a world record of 12.87 in June.

The waif-like Jelimo has run only a handful of 800 meter races but her early-season time of 1 minute 54.99 seconds is way ahead of anyone else this season and the fastest in the event for almost 11 years.

Jelimo and Croatia’s world champion high jumper Blanka Vlasic are the only athletes still in the running for the Golden League jackpot.

The shortest odds on gold will be in the pole vault where world and Olympic champion Yelena Isinbayeva, who extended her own world record to 5.03 meters in July, would need to suffer a disaster not to retain her title.

Dibaba, twice a world champion at 5,000 and 10,000 meters, is vastly experienced despite being only 23 and with her devastating last-lap finishes she stands a real chance of becoming the first woman to win both golds at the same Games.

Dibaba broke the world 5,000 meters record by five seconds in Oslo in June and the previous holder of the mark, compatriot Meseret Defar, poses a serious threat to her Olympic hopes.

(Editing by Robert Woodward)