BERLIN — It is a post-Olympic year, not usually ideal timing for a compelling world track and field championship. But the nine-day meet that will begin in Berlin on Saturday is generating an unusually strong amount of anticipation and nostalgia.
The anticipation is tightly focused on two disparate sprinters: Usain Bolt of Jamaica and Tyson Gay of the United States.
Bolt is the true global figure, the tall and extravagant record-smasher with the Caribbean lilt in his baritone voice who did for the final week at last year’s Summer Olympics in Beijing what Michael Phelps did for the first week.
Gay — smaller and less flamboyant — is, for now at least, part of the chase pack after Bolt’s three gold medals and three world records in Beijing. But it is easy to forget that Gay, not Bolt, is the defending world champion in the 100 and the 200 and the 4x100 relay. And though injury kept Gay from mounting a serious Olympic challenge last year, he has the world’s fastest times in both sprints this year. The 100-meter finals are Sunday.
