The Beijing Olympic Games seem not to be a single star stage for 100 meters sprinters. No previous Olympics have seen the world's fastest trio who are all close contenders for the Olympic men's 100 meters gold.

Among them, one was the second-time world record holder but failed to get even one major event title; one was triple world champions but had never created a legally admitted world record; one concentrated more on the 200 meters but breezily lowered the 100 meters world record by 0.2 seconds.

Top three of the only four people who have ever finished 100 meters inside 9.80 seconds are going to compete for the men's 100 meters crown.

Tyson Gay, one of the most frightening sprinters, clocked a wind-aided 9.68 seconds at the U.S. Olympic Trials in Eugene, Oregon, last month, making him the world's fastest man under any conditions.

Gay's previous U.S. national record in 9.77 seconds, which is, nevertheless, the third best in all time, seemed more or less unimpressive.

Gay snatched triple golds in the International Association of Athletics Federations (IAAF) World Championships in 2007 in Osaka, Japan, which helped slide him into the prestigious peers of Carl Lewis, Michael Johnson and Maurice Greene, who won three gold medals at a single World Championship competition.

Asafa Powell of Jamaica was frustrated by Gay in the Osaka meet and finished third in 9.96 seconds. Major athletics events were proved not his game. After the fifth in men's 100 meters final at the Athens Games, Powell set the world record twice, 9.77 seconds in 2005 and 9.74 seconds in 2007.

The 25-year-old Jamaican has run 36 sub-10 second races till now, only bettered by U.S. sprinter Greene with 52 times in his career. Greene created a new world record 9.79 seconds in 1999, beating Donovan Bailey's standing record of 9.84 seconds, lowering it by the largest margin since the advent of electronic timing. The 33-year-old American announced his retirement earlier this year, allegedly due to his nagging injuries.

Powell, by all means, is one of the hardest to beat who planned to be a mechanic before taking running as his career. The Jamaican is one of the only two men who run under 9.80 seconds legally more than once. His fellow Jamaican Usain Bolt, three years his junior, is a distant second with two sub-9.80 performances.

Bolt is most likely to show up in the Beijing Olympic men's 200 meters final one day before his 22nd birthday. He stripped Powell of the men's 100meters world record in 9.72 seconds on May 31 in New York.

Bolt, sometimes viewed as too tall to sprint with his officially-announced height of 1.94 meters, started training in 100 meters in 2007 after he broke 36-year-old Jamaican national 200 meters record by 0.11 seconds at 19.75 seconds.

With the men's 100 meters world record in hand, Bolt also created the year's best of 200 in 19.67 seconds. He is the favorite who has been expected to break the men's 200 meter world record held for 12 years by Michael Johnson at 19.32 seconds. But Bolt played down the possibility of creating a new 200 meters world record too soon. "Maybe next year," he said.

Powell said Bolt's record-breaking run in the 100 meters race took off the pressure. "Now I can be a lot more focus on what I need to achieve," Powell said, citing that running within 9.60 seconds in 100 meters was "definitely" going to happen.

"The real challenge is getting the (Olympic) gold medal," he said, calling the Olympics a battle of attrition. Top sprinters have to compete for the gold in four rounds in Olympics. "You just have to run one race for the world record so it's easier," Powell said.

All the top contenders are strangers to the Olympic men's 100 meters medals except the 2004 Athens silver medalist Francis Obikwelu of Portugal who clocked 9.86 seconds at the event four years ago.

Gay's hope for winning three Olympic golds were impossible after he was disqualified for the U.S. men's 200 meters team due to cramp injuries in the U.S. Olympic Trials last month.

Thus, the fierceness of the men's half lap competition at the Beijing Games would be overshadowed by the 100 meters sprint. Neither defending Olympic champion Shawn Crawford nor Wallace Spearman is able to challenge Bolt's superiority in the men's 200 meters competition.

The U.S. legendary sprinter Carl Lewis was recently reluctant to predict who would win the men's 100 meter gold at the coming Beijing Olympics.

"It would not be fair to name one, that could bring too much pressure," said Lewis, who garnered nine Olympic golds and eight world champions.

(Xinhua News Agency July 17, 2008)