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Gay predicts 100m world record will fall in Osaka
The US sprint king predicts that Jamaican Asafa Powell's 100m world record of 9.77 seconds might fall when they duel at the world championships in Japan.
US sprint king Tyson Gay forecast on Thursday that Jamaican Asafa Powell's 100m world record of 9.77 seconds may fall when they duel at the world championships at Osaka.
"My first goal is to be victorious and try to take the gold medal," said Gay, who registered a wind-aided and unsanctioned time of 9.76 seconds in New York in June.
"But everything I am hearing about the track and the surface, it's supposed to be fast. So I'm really thinking it's possible for the world record to be broken."
Gay, who ended 2006 ranked No.1 in the world in the 200m and second in the 100m to Powell, has been improving in the shorter sprint, clocking the year's best non-wind aided 100m time of 9.84 seconds at the national championships in June.
"In the final, I believe it's going to take maybe 9.80 or faster. I will go really fast under the right air conditions," he added ahead of the blue-riband event. The heats are on Saturday and the final on Sunday.
Gay lost to Powell in all their five encounters over 100m last year and Osaka will be their first head-to-head clash this season.
"I feel very good. This is what everybody has been waiting for and I've been waiting for as well," Gay said of the showdown which will decide the fastest man on earth in the absence world and Olympic champion Justin Gatlin who failed a drugs test last year.
"He (Powell) has been undefeated for over a year now and I've been undefeated for this year."
"I really think that the best thing to do is really feel confident going into this race," added Gay, who also owns the world's fastest 200m times this year.
