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Gay eyes Beijing triple
04/02/2008 13:52 - (SA)
Beijing - World champion Tyson Gay, on his first visit to Beijing on Monday, said he was targeting three gold medals for the United States at the August Olympics.
With six months to go, the world 100m and 200m champion said that he had already stepped up his training to prepare for the inevitable "pounding" he would put his body through in order to achieve that goal.
"I aim to come home with three gold medals in 100m, 200m and the 4x100 relay," the 25-year-old from Kentucky said in an interview.
"It will be the high point of my career and I don't want any regrets. I don't want to look back and say 'I should've, I would've, I could've'. This is it."
He said that his training routine had already intensified six months out from the August 8-24 Games.
"The difference leading up to the Olympics is strength training," he said. "My weight-lifting has increased.
"I lift twice a day now and I practice once a day so I am working three sessions a day.
"I never did that before. But I think that is what it is going to take for me to have the edge over my competitors."
Gay said his priority was the 100m but he was looking to double up over 200m and also to help the US win the relay gold.
"The 100m dash is first and foremost but I really think we have a great chance of winning the relay hands down, no doubt in my mind," he said.
"The 200m is going too be tough. But I am really looking forward to the challenge."
Gay, voted world men's athlete of the year after beating Jamaican world record holder Asafa Powell to the 100m world title in Osaka in August before winning the 200m world title there as well, said he was already dealing with pre-Olympic jitters.
"On the bus ride over here I had butterflies. I was like 'Oh my gosh, this is Beijing, I'm here already'," he said.
"But I can cope with it. It's stage fright you have to work with. I am just trying not to over-think it."
Gay arrived in Beijing on Saturday with a group of world and Olympic champions from the United States as well as Ethiopia's distance running sensation Haile Gebrselassie and Jamaica's Veronica Campbell-Brown, the women's 100m world champion and 200m Olympic champion.
They are on a pre-Olympic visit of several days to scout out the capital and to visit the 90 000-seater main Olympic stadium, where they are all hoping to snatch glory at the 2008 Games.
Other US champions in the group were Olympic and world 400m title holder Jeremy Wariner, 24, Maurice Greene, 33, the former world and Olympic champion over 100m and 200m and Allyson Felix, 22, the women's 200m world champion.
Wariner, the undisputed king of 400m for past four seasons, said he was gunning for gold and a world record in Beijing.
"My ambition is to come back here in summer and win," said the Texan. "That's my first one, and the second is to go for the world record."
One year out from the Games, Wariner clocked 43.50 in August 2007, his best time as he targeted the 43.18 second record held by legend Michael Johnson, who is now his manager.
Veteran Greene said he would not be competing in the 2008 Games and that his future would probably be in coaching.
Greene, who won the 100m and 200m gold in Sydney in 2000, said that he was sad he would not race in August but felt the United States had a worthy successor in Gay.
"I am going to always wish I was going to run in Beijing," he said.
"But I believe Tyson is capable of taking my spot and to bring the gold medals back for the United States."
- AFP
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