Gay enjoys going straight as sprinter beats record
AMERICAN sprinter Tyson Gay blazed a trail through the streets of Manchester yesterday, setting a new world record for the 200m on a straight track.
Gay, the world 100m silver medallist, left former world champion Kim Collins trailing a very distant second with a time of 19.41 seconds.
There to witness the feat at the Great City Games was Tommie Smith, who set the record broken by Gay some 44 years ago.
“It was truly amazing and it was a tough record to break,” said Gay. The 200m is very rarely run on a straight track nowadays, and Gay added: “Going into the race I knew it was going to be tough to beat the record. It was pretty hard for the first 100m or so and I was extremely tired.”
On the same track, Jessica Ennis beat Christine Ohuruogu over 150m as two of Britain’s best-known female athletes went head-to-head in a special contest.
Ennis, 24, is the world heptathlon champion while Ohuruogu is the current Olympic champion over 400m. But the track specialist was beaten into third as Ennis clocked 16.99 seconds. “I’m made up,” said Ennis. “I was nervous but it was brilliant race.”