Tyson the typhoon threatens record run

Gay was running 200 metres last night at the Athletissma Grand Prix meeting in Lausanne but it was his first half of the race around the bend that left an indelible impression.

He was running against a world-class field. Three of his rivals had run under 20 seconds for the distance this summer but the race was over by the time Gay hit the straight strides ahead.

On a night when the crowd in Switzerland endured a cold evening in anoraks, Gay was like the lightning that threatened from the dark clouds above the Pontaise Stadium. He did not need to stretch himself in the straight - comfortable in his easy victory - but he still stopped the clock at 19.78sec.

The nearest to him was Usain Bolt, a Jamaican who has run 19.75sec this summer but was over a quarter of a second behind in 20.11sec. Wallace Spearmon, Gay's training partner and a 19.82 man this summer, was third in 20.42sec. Such was Gay's mastery of man and conditions.

Gay has the fastest 100/200m combination in the sport's history. The question posed by his performances is: how long can Asafa Powell's 100m record of 9.77sec survive his assault? Indeed, can Michael Johnson's 200m record of 19.32sec last another year?

Gay ran 19.70sec in Lausanne last year and wanted 19.50sec last night so he might have been disappointed. But he pointed out that because of slight tendinitis in his right knee, caused by so many races at the U.S Championships, he has trained only twice since.

A year ago the rivalry that excited athletics was Asafa Powell and Justin Gatlin. For Gatlin, now read Gay - not, the sport hopes, in the drug taking department but in the desire of Europe's promoters to get him together with Powell in the only meaningful contest at 100m.

Gay's legal best was 9.84sec last year - just 0.07sec behind Powell's world record. But Gay ran 9.76sec last month when only the tiniest gust of wind at his back, measured at 0.5 miles per hour over the limit allowed for records, robbed him of Powell's mark.

"It hurt when I heard," said Gay. Sport needs competition and in no event more than the 100m. Carl Lewis and Ben Johnson, Carl Lewis and Linford Christie, Frankie Fredericks and Maurice Greene - it always takes two to set pulses racing. In Gatlin's enforced absence, Powell needs Gay as much as he needs a pair of racing spikes.

Gay said before he ran his 9.76sec: "I am sure Asafa wants more competition. I want this to be a rivalry. I want to step up to the plate.

"I don't know if you'd call me a friend but we speak and we joke around. I respect him as an athlete and as a person. He carries himself in a very humble way."

Sadly, Powell, who ran a relay last night as a gentle comeback from three weeks out injured, chose Rome for his next 100m when he found out that Gay would not be there and declined an invitation to Sheffield when he found out he would be.

Luigi D'Onofrio, the Rome promoter, said: "I don't think they want to meet before the World Championships."

Last night's 100m was won by Derrick Atkins, the Bahamian who won at last Friday's Golden League in Paris. His winning time of 10.04sec was marginally ahead of Marlon Devonish's B race win but nobody else went close to the Briton's time. Churandy Martina was runner-up to Atkins in 10.10sec.

The best British performance after Devonish was Michael Rimmer's 800m win in another B race, with Russian champion Dmitri Bogdanov among his scalps.

Others will take less comfort home from Switzerland.

At 400m, Tim Benjamin struggled again - finishing fifth outside 46secs - and European indoor champion Nicola Sanders was sixth in 51.87sec on her return from injury. She was more than a second off Norlene Williams' winning time.